From the Ashes
by zennjenn
Summary: It's 2009 and Buffy's going back to school and getting a real life. The only thing standing in her way is a mysterious writer and a bestselling book that strikes a familiar chord. Could Spike be alive? And if it is him, why hasn't he contacted her?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't' own em and I make no money off of this! I just play in Joss's world!

Chapter One

Buffy glanced over at her sister, sprawled next to her in the sand.

"What are you reading now?" she asked as she reached for a bottle of cold water.

Dawn glanced up, her sunglasses hiding her eyes. "It's a new series," she replied. She flashed the front of the book to her sister. A dark cover with a matte finish framed the title and an embossed stylized phoenix. "The Grigori Series. This is the first book, 'Hold Back the Dawn'".

Buffy grimaced. "Please tell me it's better than those Twilight books you were reading." God knows, Buffy had tried to like the books that were creating such a stir. When Dawn had come home all excited about the latest installment of the Twilight saga, Buffy had allowed herself to be dragged in and she'd started the first book….and she'd never finished it.

Bella annoyed her. What kind of girl wanted to give up who she was for someone else? You can love the vamp; you don't need to be one. But it was when Buffy reached the scene where the brooding Edward showed his lady love how he glittered in the sunlight that she'd tossed the book aside in frustration.

"Vamps don't glitter," she'd reminded Dawn. This was a subject they were both far too familiar with.

But Dawn had simply grinned. "Wouldn't it be cool if they did? Can you imagine Spike glittering like diamonds in the sunlight?" Too late, Dawn had remembered that mentioning the blond vampire in front of her sister wasn't a good idea. Buffy had been unable to hide the deep hurt and pain in her eyes and Dawn had felt terrible.

But none of this had put Dawn off the series. She'd finished the fourth book and then dragged Buffy and Xander to see the film.

Even Xander had been dismissive, but that may have had more to do with the broodiness of the vampire than the fact that he lit up like a disco ball at high noon.

Buffy drank from the water bottle and then set it back in the cooler to keep it cold. She adjusted the strap to her two piece bathing suit and laid back, eyes closed. "What's this one about?"

Dawn flipped over onto her stomach. "I think you'd like this one better. It's about an order of angels, well two orders really. The Order of the Fallen Angels and the Order of the Guardian Angels."

"Let me guess, Fallen are the bad ones and the Guardians are the good ones?"

"Hmmm," Dawn replied. "Yeah, but they all started out as the same. They were all of the Grigori, an army of angels sent down by God to live amongst the mortals and protect them. But because they were so much like them, they got caught up and corrupted by the very humans they were sent to protect. The army was divided and some were cast out by God and there you get your Fallen Angels, and those that staid true to God's word became the Guardians."

"Doesn't sound like a bad premise," Buffy said. "At least it sounds like the writer tried to create a mythology."

"What I like is that he uses this sort of biblical story to explain the presence of the supernatural in our world. All the demon hunters, guardian angels, seers, good witches and some of the shape shifters are descendants of those angels who staid true. And the vamps, demons, sorcerers and the other shape shifters are all descendants of those bad ass angels. "

Buffy glanced over at her and smiled. "Angel would have liked that; to know that he was descendant from an order of angels may have helped him."

Dawn grinned. "Yeah, maybe he'd have brooded less."

They paused for a moment, thinking back, and then they both smiled at one another.

"Maybe not," they both said and burst out laughing.

"Read some to me," Buffy said. She didn't want to think of Angel anymore. While it didn't hurt to think of him, living happily (or as happily as he could) with Nina over in L.A, it brought to mind less pleasant memories. Ones she didn't want to examine in the bright light of a sunny North Carolina afternoon.

Dawn smiled. When she had her sister like this, all to herself, it made her feel safe and secure. It wasn't often. Once or twice a year they would go away together, get away from the Scooby gang and the other slayers. They would come here, to the east coast and lie on the beaches and eat boiled shrimp and drink funny drinks with pastel coloured paper parasols in them. And for a couple of weeks, they would pretend that they were normal.

"Okay, let me see where I'm at," she flipped through the paper, sucking absently on a strand of her long dark, brown hair. "So our main character right, her name is Morgan Carmichael and she's just found out that she's the newest member of the Order of the Guardian Angels and she's not too happy about it." Dawn turned to the next chapter of her novel and began to read.

_"What the fucking hell is this?"_

Buffy lifted her sunglasses and looked over at her sister, eyebrows raised in delicate arches of incredulity. "That's how the chapter starts?"

Dawn chuckled. "Yeah, in the last chapter she went out on this blind date with a guy her brother fixed her up with and it ended with her passing out."

Buffy settled the glasses back on her face and laid back. "That's never good. Gotta hate when that happens," she smirked. Then, thinking, she looked back at her sister. "Always pay attention to your drink. Make sure it's always with you!"

Dawn rolled her eyes at the warning, and then continued reading.

_"Morgan Carmichael," a voice in front of her said. "Welcome."_

_She peered through the faint light, her sight slowly adjusting to the gloom._

_"Where the fuck am I, and who the fuck are you?" she growled._

_There were chuckles and she realized that there were more people in the room than she'd originally thought._

_"She's got a mouth on her like a trucker," a woman said in amusement. _

Buffy snorted. "Have to agree with that one."

Dawn glared at her. "Stop interrupting!"

Her sister waved her hand. "Alright, sorry! Continue!"

_"Fuck off," Morgan said in the direction of the voice._

_More laughter._

_"I like her," a male said. "She's got spirit."_

_Morgan was fully accustomed to the light and she looked around. There were twelve of them, men and women of various ages, various sizes, and various ethnic backgrounds. Her gaze settled on one familiar face and her eyes narrowed._

_"You!" she muttered. "I knew I shouldn't have gone out with you! What the hell did you give me?"_

_  
Rain stepped forward. "Morgan, I'm sorry. I had no choice."_

"Hold on," Buffy said, glancing over at Dawn. "I just need clarification. Rain is the guy she went out with on that blind date?"

Dawn nodded. "Yeap, and apparently, he's a hottie!"

Buffy grinned. "Good to know."

Dawn turned back to the book, quickly finding her place, and continued reading.

Buffy listened, letting Dawn's voice spill over her as she told the story. Dawn was an entertaining reader - she played around with the voices and added just the right amount of inflection when needed. As the members of the Order explained their origins, Buffy nodded – she could appreciate how important it was for the main character to understand where she came from.

"See," she said, interrupting her again. "This guy," she gestured to the book, "whoever wrote this, he gets it. He gets that his heroine needs to know where her power and her strength come from. I like that."

Dawn arched her eyebrows and glared.

Buffy bit her lip, fighting back a grin. "Alright. I promise I'll stop."

Dawn snorted in disbelief and turned back to the book to finish reading the chapter.

"_Gwen smiled. "Morgan, you have been chosen to be a member of the Order of the Guardians. Your family is a direct line from the angel Michael himself, favoured by God and a king of angels. A warrior. Now, you too are a warrior and a queen in the Order."_

_Morgan stared at her, her throat tight, fear coursing through her veins._

"_Do I get to wear a cape?" she whispered._

_Then she fainted and slumped to the floor."_

Buffy burst out laughing and Dawn glanced up at her chuckling.

"Do I get to wear a cape," Buffy repeated, shaking her head. "I like her. She's got great one liners." She sighed, "dare I hope that she wears fashionable but inexpensive shoes?"

Dawn laughed. "Fashionable and practical, she's a teacher. But considering her father is loaded, I'm sure she's got at least one pair of Manolo Blahniks."

"See, that was the problem with being the slayer. There was never enough money to buy expensive shoes!" Buffy looked up at the darkening sky. A storm was brewing out over the Atlantic. As the wind picked up, carrying with it the scent of rain and metal, she began gathering their things.

Dawn grimaced. "_The_ problem? There were bigger problems than that. How about not getting a decent night's sleep? How about inhaling all that dust from those dead vampires? Umm, and not to mention the complete lack of a social life. I think cheap shoes were the least of your problems."

Buffy stood up and shook the sand from her towel, remembering those years in Sunnydale. Funny how time seemed to age the memories like a fine wine. Even the darkest moments had faded to lovely sepia. She shrugged. "It wasn't all bad," she murmured. "And things are different now." She folded her towel and stuck it in her bag.

Dawn packed up the snacks and drinks, eying the encroaching clouds. She paused for a moment and looked at her sister. "Are you okay with that?"

Buffy smiled, glad that the dark glasses and the fading sunlight hid her true expression. "Sure I am," she lied. "Aren't you?"

"Glad that you aren't the only slayer anymore? Glad that you aren't out there fighting for your life every night? Yeah, I'm glad," Dawn replied. But there was a tremor to her tone that belied her statement.

Buffy slung her arm around her sister's shoulders and they trudged up the beach, through the long grassy dunes and found the path that lead to their beach house.

"It was fun sometimes though wasn't it?" Buffy asked softly.

Dawn smiled up at her, the sadness in her large blue eyes giving that smile a certain edge. "Yeah, it was."

Buffy spotted the house up ahead and noted that the last of the sun's rays were glinting off the living room windows. Then they were snuffed out in a wink and she felt a chill as the first drops of rain hit her sun warmed shoulders.

She picked up the pace, wanting to get inside before the storm hit, before the true night fell. She was all too aware of the monsters that went bump in the night. And while she was more than capable of dealing with them, things hadn't been quite the same since she'd lost the monster she'd called her own.

***

The phone rang late that night and Buffy sat up suddenly in bed. She reached for the phone, her heart pounding.

"Hello?"

"Hey Buffy, what time is it there?"

Buffy relaxed immediately at the happy sound of Willow's voice. She glanced over at the clock on the nightstand. "Two a.m.," she replied.

Willow chuckled. "Oops, sorry. We just got back from "The Crypt" and I decided to give you a quick update."

Buffy fought back a sigh of frustration. Even here, on the other side of the continent, on her supposed vacation, she couldn't escape who and what she was. "Sure," she said, aiming for enthusiasm and hitting a tone of barely tolerant. "Go ahead, what happened?"

"Well, Xander was hitting on this woman who was old enough to be his mother, but apparently older women like the whole patch thing. Very Pirates of the Caribbean. I don't get it."

Buffy shook her head and fought back a smile. "Willow, you don't get guys period. You're into women."

"Yeah, but I _am_ a woman and I don't get the whole pirate thingie!"

"What if the pirate had breasts and wore long flowing skirts and had a nose ring and long hair?"

Silence on the other end. "You got me," Willow said with a sigh.

"So what happened at The Crypt, other than Xander and the Patch?"

"There's talk about a nest over in Beverly Hills," Willow said cheerfully.

Buffy whistled. "Vamps with backing and influence. Send a team out to see who's in charge and then let Angel and his crew know. They might want to see if they can cash in on whatever's going on."

There was the sound of liquid through a straw followed by crunching as Willow took a sip of her drink and then grabbed a handful of popcorn.

"Do you want me to set up a meeting with Angel? I mean, you haven't met with Wolfram & Hart in a few months and well, maybe you could come back for that?"

Buffy closed her eyes and fought back the headache that was suddenly pressing against the backs of her eyes. Meetings with Angel were never fun, which was why she avoided them. But they were necessary. They did, after all, share the same purpose. Their methods differed at times, but not enough to place them at opposite ends of the good fight spectrum.

Following that last big battle there hadn't been much left to Wolfram & Hart or Angel's team. Wes hadn't survived the battle and Illyria had disappeared into another dimension when the intensity of the conflict had blasted open several portals. Angel had been left with only Gunn and some millions that he'd been smart enough to set aside for a rainy day.

Well the rainy day had arrived and it had poured chaos and destruction.

And as usual, Angel had risen to the top.

Buffy tried not to feel too bitter about it. She was happy that he'd survived.

It had broken her heart that a certain other vampire hadn't been so lucky.

Turning her attention back to the conversation at hand, she pressed her fingers to her temples and inhaled. "You don't need me there," she said softly. "Get Kennedy to go."

A heavy, awkward silence descended on the other end of the line.

Buffy knew that Willow's loyalties were with her. But she also knew that there was a strong bond between the witch and the other slayer.

"Willow, it's okay," she said softly.

"It's weird," her best friend said.

"It's time," Buffy said. "We've talked about this. You know I'll still be involved. I'll help train the new girls if you need extra help and you know that you can always count on me to be there."

"But…" Willow said, the single word weighed down by sadness.

"But I'm tired. I want a break." She wanted more than a break. She wanted a chance at a real life and this was the first time in over a decade that it would be possible. Following the destruction of Sunnydale there had been no time. There'd been young slayers to train and develop. And then there had been the battle in L.A that had brought down Wolfram & Hart. And then with Giles getting sick and the Watcher's Council needing rebuilding, there had just never been an opportunity for her to step down.

Things were different now. Willow was running the Watcher's Council and doing an incredible job. Xander headed slayer recruitment, traveling the world and bringing newly chosen slayers to L.A for training. Kennedy took care of their training and Dawn headed research and investigation. Even Andrew had a job. The five of them worked closely with Angel's crew over at the old Hyperion and together they took care to hold back the spread of chaos the world over.

For the first time in a long time, Buffy didn't really need to be there 24/7. She could do what she wanted. She could live her life the way she wanted.

"Have you spoken to Dawn yet?"

"No, I'm going to tell her tomorrow. We're going shopping and out for lunch. I figured I'd break the news then."

"It's going to kill her," Willow said.

Buffy shook her head. "She's stronger now and she knows that I will always be here and she can come and visit whenever she wants."

"She's going to miss you," Willow murmured.

Buffy was glad her friend wasn't there to see the tears in her eyes. Willow had Kennedy, Xander had a string of women, Angel had Nina and even Dawn had a boyfriend, a high school teacher who didn't have a problem with her rather unusual work and lifestyle. And while Buffy knew that they would all miss her, she also knew that they would cope.

And she wanted to figure out her own life and her own relationships. Ultimately she wanted to be the one who had someone to lean on, as opposed to being the one everyone leaned on.

It was long overdue.

"Well call me once you tell her. I mean," Willow continued hurriedly, "if you need to."

Buffy smiled. "I will," she replied. "Can you send my things to the beach house?"

"Yeah, everything's packed up?" Buffy could tell by her tone that Willow was fighting hard for that bright cheeriness.

"Just the things I want with me," she said. There were a couple of boxes. Some books, her favorite mug, some extra shoes and clothes, a couple of framed pictures of the gang and a long, black, leather coat.

"Alright, I'll talk to you soon."

"Good night Willow." Buffy hung up the phone and lay back in the bed. She closed her

eyes, but she knew that sleep was as distant and far away as her friend was.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Buffy!" Dawn cried out.

Her sister spun around. "What?"

Dawn stepped out from behind the clothes rack, holding up a very short plaid cotton skirt. "This is adorable! What do you think?"

Buffy breathed in deeply, trying to calm the pounding of her heart. She supposed it would take years for her to stop jumping every time Dawn screamed or cried out about something - even if it was for joy.

Eyeing the skirt doubtfully, Buffy shook her head. "It's awful and you're too old to wear something like that."

Looking affronted, Dawn deliberately tucked the skirt under her arm. "We'll see about that."

Buffy chuckled and pulled out a lovely long sleeved, black turtleneck. It would be great, she thought, for those long walks on the beach on cool November nights.

"What're you buying that for? Looks like something you'd wear to a funeral," Dawn said.

Buffy ran her hands over the sweater. "It's really soft and cozy," she murmured.

"You're going to roast in it," Dawn said with certainty. She pulled out a silk t shirt from another rack. "If you're going to wear black, try this, it's nice and slinky."

Buffy shook her head and took the warm sweater, rubbing her cheek against the soft cashmere. "Nope, I want this one." She looked over at Dawn, her heart tightening. How, after all these years, was she going to let her go? "Dawn, let's pay for these and go grab an ice cream."

Dawn's face immediately brightened, her blue eyes wide with childish delight. Even though she was a woman grown, even though she'd seen things that could curdle milk, Dawn had managed to somehow retain a certain childish innocence. Buffy would have liked to have taken some credit for that, for having protected her and sheltered her as best as she could. But she suspected it had more to do with Dawn's supernatural nature than Buffy's mothering skills.

The two hurried to the cash, paid for their purchases and then headed for the boardwalk. The hot sun beat down on their sunkissed shoulders and the breeze blowing off the Atlantic tossed their hair. Men of all ages, young and old, paused and smiled in appreciation as the two young women strolled passed them with their shopping bags and their air of quiet self confidence.

Buffy stopped at an ice cream parlor and stepped up to the window. "Dawn, what kind do you want?"

"Bubble gum!"

Buffy grimaced at the attendant. "You heard her. One large bubblegum and a large double chocolate almond for me." She leaned against the clapboard sided wall of the ice cream shop as she waited and she watched her sister. Dawn had managed to collect a retinue of attentive young men as she stood on the boardwalk. She was laughing and talking, carefree and full of joy. It was so seldom that Buffy saw her like that. Back in Sunnydale Dawn had vacillated between childish innocence and stupidity, adult fear and intensity. Now, as a grown woman in her early twenties, she was a professional, a studious and attentive researcher. But when they took this time out to visit the beach house, something of Dawn's youth and innocence resurfaced and Buffy could just enjoy it.

She didn't want to ruin it, but she knew she was going to. Dawn thought they were heading west the next morning.

She needed to know she was going alone.

"Here you go ma'mm," the young man said, handing her the ice cream cones. She paid, trying not to grimace when he called her ma'mm. She headed back to her sister and gave Dawn her ice cream cone. Sending the young men a pointed glance, Buffy gestured to a bench.

"Let's sit here for a while," she said.

Dawn nodded, busy licking her ice cream and they sat on the bench and stared out at the sea. She chattered nonsensically about everything but demons, vampire nests and battle plans and Buffy just let her go, let the lovely music of her sister's conversation and the background noise spill over her.

Finally, she twisted on the bench and faced her. "Dawn, we need to talk," she said softly.

Dawn froze, her gaze wide and uncomprehending. "What?"

"I – I'm not going back to L.A tomorrow with you," Buffy said.

Dawn shook her head, the hand holding her ice cream slowly lowering, suddenly forgotten. "What are you talking about? Our flight leaves tomorrow morning!"

Buffy shook her head. "No, your flight leaves tomorrow. I'm staying here, I'm moving here. I'm going to stay in the beach house. Dawn, I'm not returning to L.A."

Dawn angrily threw the ice cream cone to the ground. "Why? Why are you doing this to me?"

Buffy sighed. Some things never, ever changed, no matter how much older they were. "I'm not doing this to you Dawn, for once I'm doing this for me."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "Please, you are always doing things for yourself! You're the freaking slayer, every breath you take is for that!"

Buffy leaned forward. "Exactly!" she exclaimed. "Dawn, I don't want to do things for the slayer, or _because_ I'm the slayer. I want to do them for me, because _I'm_ Buffy."

Dawn scoffed. "But you are the slayer - what makes you think you have a separate identify from that?"

Her sister's eyes widened in hurt. "I do Dawn. I have dreams and needs and wants that have nothing to do with hunting down and killing demons. And quite frankly, I don't need to do that anymore. There are enough slayers out there to do it for me. For once, I want to live my life on my own terms."

"So what are you going to do?" Dawn said sarcastically. "Get a real job?"

Buffy sat back, offended. This wasn't going the way she'd expected. She'd expected Dawn would be hurt. But she should have anticipated her sister's anger. She'd miscalculated. "I'm actually going back to school and as part of my program, I have a co-op, so yeah I will be working and studying."

Dawn smirked. "Doing what? Flipping burgers? Are there any Double Meat Palaces around here looking for new slaves?"

Fed up, Buffy stood up. "I thought you'd understand. Guess I was wrong," she said. "Apparently you're still a selfish brat." With that last volley, she spun on her heels and left.

***

It was dark when Dawn returned to the beach house. Buffy staid in her room; she sat in the wingback by the open window, listening to the ocean, and writing in her journal. It was a practice she'd begun a few years back, after Spike was killed. She'd been so furious with him – pissed off that he'd been alive that whole time and never contacted her and then she'd been furious when he'd gone and gotten himself killed a second time.

It had been Giles who had told her to start a journal. One night they had gone out on a patrol and Buffy had barely made it out alive and wouldn't have, if it hadn't been for Kennedy. Afterwards, Giles had found her in a quiet corner of the cemetery weeping. He had taken her into his arms and let her cry and scream and beat his chest in a weak, futile, feminine way. And then they had talked honestly about her feelings and experiences with Spike. And Giles, with his infinite wisdom and those extra years, had suggested she start a journal.

So she had. And every night, in her journal, she wrote a letter to Spike. Sometimes she just talked about her day and her evening's activities, the hunts, the battles and the big and not so big bads. But most often she wrote about all the things she wished she'd said to him while she'd had him.

A soft knock on her bedroom door brought her back to the present. Buffy tucked the pen into the journal and set it on her lap.

"Come on in," she called out.

Dawn opened the door and peered sheepishly around it. "Hey, can I come in?"

Buffy nodded and Dawn slipped in. She had changed into her pajamas and washed her face. Nothing could hide the red and puffy eyes. She climbed into Buffy's bed, crossed her legs, and looked over at her sister.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Thanks."

Dawn shook her head. "I just don't know what I'm going to do without you."

Buffy smiled gently. "You'll live your life, just like you do everyday. You'll go out with Josh and work with Willow and the council. You'll go to the Crypt on Friday nights and you'll argue with Xander and Andrew and you'll help Giles pick out his ties for those horrible meetings he insists on holding."

Dawn's eyes filled with tears. "But it won't be the same…"

Buffy stood up and went to her. She crawled into the bed beside her sister and pulled her into her arms. "Maybe not at first, but you'll get used to it." She sighed. "Dawn, I need to do this and I need you to be okay with it. Please."

"I'll try," Dawn whispered.

Buffy closed her eyes and pressed her lips against Dawn's hair. "Thank you."

"Can I stay here with you tonight?" Dawn asked.

"Sure."

They rearranged themselves on the bed and pulled the thin sheet and the antique patchwork quilt up to their chins. On top of the blankets rested their entwined hands.

"So really, what kind of job are you going to have anyway?"

Buffy laughed out loud at the disbelief in her sister's voice and then proceeded to lay out her future plans.

***

Their parting at the airport was blissfully short, but no less painful. Dawn was, as usual, running late and by the time they got to the airport there was barely time to hug and say goodbye before she had to race through security and get on the plane. Buffy held on to her tightly, filled with doubt and uncertainty. Once Dawn left, there would be no change of heart, no turning back. And she would be on her own to chart her own destiny and forge her own path.

She cried the entire way back to the beach house, angrily wiping the tears away, feeling stupid and frustrated for crying over something that had been of her own devising, her own decision. Back at the house, she walked around aimlessly, picking things up, setting them down, and then picking them back up again. Finally, she poured herself some wine and grabbing a paperback, she headed out to porch to enjoy the late afternoon sun.

Curling up on the porch swing, Buffy pushed against the floor with her toe, setting the swing in motion. As she opened her book and glanced down, she spotted something on the porch floor. She stopped the swing and bending over, peered under it.

"Ahh Dawn," she murmured as she saw the book her sister had been reading. Stretching, she reached for it, grasping with the tips of her fingers and dragging it towards her. With a heave, she pulled the book and herself back into the wildly swaying swing, almost knocking the glass of wine over. "Whoa!!!" she called out with a chuckle, steadying the swing with her foot.

Curiously, Buffy opened the book to the end of the chapter that Dawn had read to her. Surely there was no harm in continuing it. She'd been enjoying it and had planned on asking Dawn what happened after Morgan's first street battle had tested her mettle. Since Dawn had left it behind, then Buffy could read it before sending it back to her. That decided, Buffy settled back, snuggled into the cushion, sipped the wine, and started reading.

Twenty minutes later, heart pounding, she gasped out loud.

"No!" she said, shaking her head. "Stupid, stupid, stupid! It's a trap!" The main character, Morgan Carmichael was heading into a club after receiving a private invitation to the grand opening. Even though her brother Rhys, also a member of the Order of the Guardians, had told her not too, Morgan was determined.

Buffy got that. How often had she gone exactly where Giles or Xander or Angel for that matter had told her not to? But hindsight was twenty-twenty and she knew that Morgan was walking into a trap.

"_Morgan wasn't familiar with the music that was pouring in deafening sonic waves from the speakers. The air seemed to shimmer with beams of light, dust, and sound. But that could also have been the pure energy that flowed through the crowd, linking them all together as they moved like puppets to the frantic rhythms. The air stank of sweat and beer and overpriced cocktails and fine perfumes. This was no run of the mill bar. This was U.S Prime beef market and the cattle were choosy and expensive._

_She tried to cut through the crowd on the dance floor, seeing as it was the most direct route to the bar. The bartender would be able to give her information; they always did with the right incentive. She'd been watching Rhys and Roan convince bartenders to hand over information for the last several months. It was her turn to do some reconnaissance. _

_But the dancing crowd seemed determined to keep her from her destination. Their bodies pressed in and around her, moving to the rhythms like lovers, their hands sliding over lithe bodies grinding against each other. _

_And then she felt it._

_Not the custom groping she'd almost anticipated in a hungry crowd._

_But this, this was equally hungry. Equally invasive. _

_She felt someone watching her. Pausing for a moment in her quest for the bar, Morgan opened her senses and began peeling back the layers of distraction just the way Gwen had taught her. One by one. Tune out the bodies pressing in. Tune out the scents. Tune out the music. Tune out the vibrations, the voices, the demands. Tune out their thoughts until there was nothing but the void. In the void was the source of her disquiet._

_She knew the presence was a he just as she knew that he wasn't human, but more than human._

_She turned slowly to her right, her gaze stealing through the crowd, trying to fix on the hungry gaze that was slowly devouring her. _

_When she found him she felt his presence even more strongly. It was as if his eyes pierced through the darkness and flashing lights right through to her heart. In that moment, she could feel all the joy and all the desperation in the room and her heart pounded in her throat and she had to fight for her breath. She felt as if she were drowning in a pool of sweat and blood. _

_Blood._

_She could smell it; a heavy metallic tang with an undertone of red wine and cigarette smoke. Not only could she smell it, but she could taste it. It was as if the air in the room had been filtered through it and the thumping music was nothing more than a giant heart, pounding and pulsing, pushing the blood through the air as if through veins. Linking them all. _

_He stared at her, this inhuman creature cloaked in darkness._

_She was stunned by his otherworldly beauty. His pale skin seemed chiseled as if from stone; a sharp nose and slashing cheekbones, a jutting chin and full, sensual lips. His blue eyes gleamed with the heat of gas flames. His dark hair was pulled back, but a strand fell forward across his eyes. The boyish trait made him seem that much more malevolent._

_Morgan knew in that instant what this creature's purpose was. It was as if he'd broadcasted it for the entire club to hear._

_His sole purpose was to kill her._

_And looking into his eyes, Morgan felt trapped."_

Buffy shivered. She looked up, realizing that she was squinting to read the text. While she'd been reading, night had fallen. Perhaps that was what had her feeling so jumpy all of a sudden. She grabbed her empty glass and headed inside, locking the door behind her. Not wanting to put the book down, she quickly refilled the glass and then threw herself on the couch and continued reading.

"_A body staggered into hers, pushing her and Morgan stumbled. Her connection to the dark creature was broken and when she straightened and looked back, he was gone._

_"Fuck," she muttered, frantically looking around the club. Her desire to beat the bartender for information was gone. All she wanted now was to find out who that demon was. And he was a demon; that much she knew. She could smell the unholy scent of ash over the stench of sweat and spilled booze. _

_She pushed her way through the crowd towards where she'd last seen him. Once there, she opened her senses, desperately trying to find his imprint, any scent or sign of him that she could follow. There was nothing; which in itself was unusual. Usually demons left an imprint behind, a stamp that like a dog, she could follow and hunt down. But this, this demon had left no clues behind. Like an expert criminal, he had wiped his scene clean._

_She peered through the darkness and spotted a door with an exit sign overhead. Wondering if he'd done the smart thing and left, she hurried towards it, fumbling in one pocket for her wooden stake and in the other pocket for her iron blade. Wooden stake if it was a vampire; iron blade for any other demon. With a weapon in each hand and her senses open and on full alert, Morgan opened the door and stepped out of the club and into the alley."_

Buffy's breath caught and she shook her head. "No, no, no!" she muttered out loud. "It's a freaking trap!" Intellectually she knew that the author had to put his character into precarious situations, otherwise there would be no action, no tension and no suspense in the story! But still! A dark alley? Chasing an unknown demon with nothing but a stake and a blade? No backup? It was just plain stupid.

She fought back a grin. It was something she'd done a million times in the past decade or so! As a matter of fact, what Morgan was doing was very similar to what Buffy had done and as she was reading, she could almost anticipate what was going to happen. It was as if the writer had been there with her, countless times, on patrols. At the Bronze or later, at the Crypt. There was something eerily familiar about this scene in particular, but Buffy couldn't quite place it.

She flipped the page and continued reading.

_"Morgan stepped into the dark alley. Lights from the street created pockets of shadows and towards the back there was nothing but inky, impenetrable darkness. She looked around and then, not seeing anything with her human eyes, she closed them and focused. Breathing in, she chanted softly, "Calling on light, calling on night. Calling on all angels within sight. Bathe this scene with your glorious might." Looking up, she opened her eyes and gasped in wonder. This ability, one of many that had been passed on to her through her trials, was still new enough to amaze her. _

_The alley was filled with a warm white glow. Every object, animate and inanimate, glowed like pearls. The light pulsed from the animate objects and shimmered from the inanimate ones._

_He stepped from the back of the alley, the creature who had been watching her in the bar. He walked towards her, his long, black leather coat flowing behind him. She could see him more clearly now in the glimmering white light and she caught her breath. Gods, she thought to herself, he was beautiful! His aura, mixing with the white light, gleamed shades of purple and blue, like fire opals. It pulsed from him, spilling from him like waves, down his tall body and flowing across the filthy alley towards her._

_"Morgan Carmichael," he said with a long, slow smile. _

_Straight, gorgeous, white teeth. Beautiful full lips and an odd accent. Not quite American, not quite British, a bit of Eastern Europe, and a splash of French. He sounded like he came from everywhere. Old, she thought. This creature, whatever he was, was ancient._

_"Yes, I am ancient," he murmured, enjoying her start of surprise. "And I've been waiting for you."_

_She froze. This was the creature from her dreams, the demon whose hands reached out from the darkness, whose lips caressed her neck, whose teeth grazed her skin, this was the creature who haunted her nights._

_"Yes, I am the creature of your dreams and your nightmares."_

_Finding her voice, she asked, "Who are you?"_

_He smiled. "You'll find out on Saturday," he murmured._

_She shrugged off the hypnotic lull and she shook her head. She hated demons; and in that moment, she decided that she hated the cryptic, gorgeous ones even more._

_"What happens on Saturday?" she asked sarcastically._

_He stared at her, his lips parted in a slight, crooked smile._

_"I will kill you," he replied. Then he turned and walked away._

Buffy froze, the book falling from her suddenly numb hands.

Now she knew why this scene in the book had seemed strangely familiar. It was more than the bar, more than the dark alley. It was even more than the handsome demon who seemed to be more than just your average run of the mill big bad.

It was what he'd said.

They were the exact same words Spike had said to her the first night they had met in the alley outside the Bronze.

She closed her eyes, remembering. It had been right before the parent teacher night at the high school. The Saturday Spike had referred to had been…. What had that damn holiday been? St Vicious? No, St Vigeous. The demons had been working themselves into a fury for three days, only to culminate in one destructive blast on St Vigeous, the night Spike had planned on killing her.

Buffy hadn't been too worried that he would succeed. Despite Angel's warnings, despite all of Giles' preparations, she'd really been more concerned about her mom and Principal Snyder crossing paths. But once the vampires had begun spilling into the school, things had changed. She grinned for a second, remembering Snyder yelling that the vamps were a gang of kids on PCP.

Spike had found her and they had fought. Right from the beginning he'd been arrogant and cocky. He'd fought fiercely and he'd fought to kill, exchanging verbal jabs along with his physical ones. But in the end, it had been her mother who'd brought him down with a blow to the head with an axe.

Buffy blinked back the tears; tears for her mother and for Spike, both of whom had been gone from her life for so long that the pain should have eased but never had.

She turned back to the book.

Coincidence? Could it be a coincidence that the author had used those exact words in a scene where an apparent demon meets up with a demon hunter? Could it be a coincidence that the whole feel of the scene was like something right from Buffy's own past?

She flipped to the back of the book jacket, looking for a photo of the author and his biography.

There was a grainy black and white photo of a man sitting at a desk in shadows. She could make out nothing of his features except a sharp, chiseled jaw line and a gleam of pale hair. His hands, resting on a desk, were long fingered and elegant.

She shook her head. Either he'd hired a horrible photographer because he'd been too cheap, or he'd ingeniously hired a brilliant art photographer and gone with the mysterious and artfully shadowed look.

She turned to the bio. It was short and sweet. "William P. Bennett lives on the east coast with his dog and a neurotic cat. Hold back the Dawn is his first novel and Book One of the Grigori Series."

Buffy's hands began to shake. As short as it was, the bio gave her one piece of important information. The author of this book shared something very, very important with Spike.

A name.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The book sat on the table like a curse. She was terrified to touch it, terrified by what might happen if she did. She turned the TV on and busied herself making dinner. But her thoughts were never far from the possibilities. Buffy picked the book up and re-read the bio at the back. She stared at the grainy photo, trying to see something in it, wishing she had some of Morgan's super sight powers; wishing she had a computer. At least then she might be able to Google the author and find a decent picture.

Finally, unable to fight it anymore, she grabbed the phone and called Willow.

"Hey, Will! Did Dawn arrive safely?"

"Hi, Buffy! Yeah! She's gone out with Josh, but you could probably catch her on her cell. Do you have the number?"

"She left it with me. I just wanted to make sure she was okay. Could you let her know that she left her "Grigori" book here?"

"Ooh! She was looking for it earlier and was worried she'd left it on the plane. She'll be glad to know."

Buffy forced a laugh. "Tell her I'm finishing it and then I'll mail it to her."

"Sure, how are you holding on? First couple nights are bound to be hard. Dawn was a mess when she got here. That's why I called Josh and told him to come over. He was able to talk her out of her droopiness and drag her out of the house."

Buffy closed her eyes and bowed her head. "Thanks, Will," she murmured.

"Not a problem," Will said. "I'd do the same thing for you if you were here…or if I were there or…you know?"

"You could do something for me," said Buffy quickly.

"Sure – what do you need?"

"Can you Google the author of that Grigori book that Dawn likes so much?" Buffy asked.

"You don't have a laptop?"

"No, you know me, I never had time and never needed one," Buffy said truthfully.

"You'll need one for school," pointed out Willow.

"I know, I'll have to go out and get one this week at some point."

"Get a Mac if you can," Willow advised.

Buffy had no idea what she was talking about, but agreed anyway. "Okay, in the meantime, can you find out as much information as you can and call me back?"

"Sure. What's going on?"

Buffy frowned. "I'm not sure, there's – it might be nothing."

"Buffy? Are you sure there's nothing wrong?"

"Yeah. I just want to follow up on something - for Dawn," she said quickly, fabricating a story.

"Okay," Willow said slowly.

"Thanks! Give me a call when you have anything," replied Buffy. "Night Will!"

She hung the phone up and turned back to the book. She stared at it, wondering. Then

she switched off the lights and went back to bed, taking the book with her.

***

Willow hung the phone up and sat back, staring off into space. She turned to her book case and scanned the shelves, searching. Finding what she was looking for, she pulled the hardcover novel from the shelf and turned it over, looking at the grainy photo on the back cover.

She shook her head.

"Shit," she muttered. Then she reached for the phone. She punched in a number and waited while it rang.

"Angel Investigations."

"Hey, Bliss. Is Angel around?"

"Sure, Willow, just a sec." Angel's administrative assistant set the phone down and hurried back from the reception and into his office.

"Angel?"

He poked his head out from behind the bathroom door. "Yes?"

"Willow's on the phone," Bliss said.

"Put her through," Angel replied, walking into the office, towel drying his hair.

Bliss took a second to admire all six feet of solid, beautiful vampire muscle and bone in jeans and nothing else, and then she dashed back to the front desk.

"Willow, I'll patch you through."

In seconds, Angel picked up. "Willow, what's up?"

"I think we have a problem," she said.

"What else is new?"

"No, we have a different kind of problem," she said, sounding worried.

"What sort of problem?"

"Remember that book I read a couple of months ago? The one that I had flagged for the Council?"

Angel nodded. He opened the file cabinet and flipped through the files. Finding the one he was looking for, he pulled it. "The Grigori, you'd been worried about it divulging Council secrets."

"That's the one," Willow said softly. Her system had caught the title and she'd read the

book, looking for codes or messages, concerned that someone might be using it to reveal information best left secret. She hadn't found anything definitive, but there had been something strange about the book. "Buffy just called me, she's reading it."

Angel shrugged, dropping the folder back onto the desk and sat down. "Buffy's reading a book?"

"Angel!"

He shook his head, frowning. "Sorry. What's wrong with her reading it?"

"Well, she just called and asked me to do some research on the author," she said.

Angel flipped open the file and stared down at the blurred black and white photo of the author that Willow had sent him. He couldn't see the problem.

"And?"

Willow sighed and closed her eyes. "I think Spike wrote it," she whispered.

Angel dropped the folder. "What the hell are you talking about, Willow?"

"There are some things in that book that are really similar to things that happened between Buffy and Spike," she explained.

"Coincidence," Angel argued.

"Too close to be coincidence," Willow retorted. "And if Buffy's reading it and asking about it, then she's seeing some connections too."

"Did you ever mention this to her?"

Willow bowed her head, resting it in the palm of her hand. "No."

"Well, good, because, Will, it's not possible and it's not worth bothering her with it," Angel said with certainty. "I was there and I saw him die." He stood up and walked over to the window, staring out at the darkness. "He went down right in front of me."

"Did you see him turn to dust?"

Angel shook his head. "No! But when I turned back, he was gone. He had to have been dusted! Willow, he took a stake through the heart!"

"We told her he was dead, Angel," Willow said.

Angel leaned against the window, pressing his forehead to the glass. "He is, Willow. There was nothing left behind but his coat, the stake, and a pile of dust."

"But you didn't see him turn to dust did you?" she persisted.

"No, but I knew he was dead," Angel replied.

"How?"

"We had a connection. I was his grandsire, I felt him die. I felt him go," Angel whispered. 'And I've felt a hole in my soul ever since,' he thought, but didn't say out loud.

"So what about this author? How could he know these things?"

"I don't know, let me look into it," Angel said. "I'll get back to you."

"And in the meantime - what about Buffy?"

"Give her some bits and pieces that you can find out about this William P. Bennett. She'll be starting school soon and that co-op, hopefully she'll be so distracted that she won't push it."

As Willow hung the phone up, she stared down at the book on her desk. She was afraid that Angel was being a bit too optimistic. The possibility of Buffy being too distracted by school and work fell under the category of highly unlikely.

Willow bit at her fingernails in worry. How was she going to face Buffy and explain

why she hadn't said anything when she'd begun to suspect that there may be someone all

too familiar behind that grainy photograph?

***

Buffy didn't sleep. She spent the night sitting at the kitchen table with the book and a pad of paper and a pencil. She might not have a computer, and she might have had to rely on Willow to do some research for her, but there was one thing neither the computer nor Willow had that Buffy had in spades.

Her memories.

So she read and she took notes. Each line of dialogue that seemed even remotely familiar, each scene that struck a chord, she wrote down. And as she read more and more frantically, her heart pounding, the list grew. By the time the sun rose, she had pages of notes and the truth was staring her in the eyes.

"_A hundred plus years, and there's only one thing I've ever been sure of – you…"_

" _I'm not asking you for anything. When I say I love you, it's not because I want you, or_

_because I can't have you, and it has nothing to do with me. I love what you are…"_

"_I know you'll never love me, I know I'm a monster. But you treat me like a man."_

"_She shall look on him with forgiveness and everybody will forgive and love and he will be loved. So everything's okay, right? Can we rest now? Morgan, can we rest?"_

The scenes were slightly different, the characters their own. But there were enough similarities that Buffy couldn't overlook them. She remembered those moments! She remembered that conversation in the hallway, the night she'd spent in his arms, that heart wrenching scene in the church. She could still see him, curled around the cross in the ghostly half light as the smoke rose from his burning flesh.

Sure, the book was different. There was no apocalypse; no attempted rape in the bathroom. When Morgan's demon lover Rain wept and begged for her forgiveness, it was over her brother's dead body.

But the moments - the beautiful, bittersweet moments were there and Buffy's heart ached.

"_You're in my gut... my throat... I'm drowning in you, Morgan, I'm drowning in you…"_

As she wrote that last line down, Buffy cracked under the weight of the memories. She

laid her head on the table and wept.

A half hour later, she sat up and wiped her eyes. Then she stood and went to the phone. She didn't care what time it was in L.A; she dialed the one number where she knew she would find someone awake.

"Hello?"

"Angel, it's me," she said, her voice hoarse from crying. She wound the phone cord around her fingers and stared out at the ocean. Brilliant oranges and reds streaked the sky, burning away the dawn. The wind had picked up and was tossing the waves onto the shore with rhythmic ferocity.

"Buffy? What's wrong?"

"Tell me again," she asked, her voice cracking. "Tell me how he died."

She heard a sigh on the other end of the line and then a frantic whisper and the creaking of the bed. It hadn't even occurred to her that he would have company, or that he would even be in bed for that matter.

"Buffy, what is this about?"

"I need you to tell me how he died!" she cried out.

"It's been five years, Buffy," Angel replied. "And I've gone over this again and again. I brought you there, showed you where he died. You need to move on."

"I can't!" she shouted. "He – I – I never got to fix things!"

"Buffy, there was nothing to fix," insisted Angel.

She shook her head, turning away from the window and walking towards the living room. "Yes, there was. Both times he died not knowing the truth! I need to tell him the truth; I need to make him see, to believe."

Angel sighed again. "Believe what?"

She closed her eyes and bowed her head, leaning against the doorframe. "He needs to believe that I loved him," she whispered.

Angel couldn't lie and tell her that Spike had known. He'd gone to his death both times – first in the Sunnydale Hellmouth and then in that back alley – doubting her feelings for him. Angel had even fed that doubt, something that now, all these years later, he regretted. Which is why, whenever she came to him and asked, he couldn't refuse her.

"What can I do to help?"

"Tell me again what happened."

Angel cleared his throat. "I'd told everyone that if they made it, we would meet in the alley, the one north of the hotel, you remember the one?"

"Yeah," she said, clutching the phone.

"I got there and then Spike and Gunn arrived. Spike was bloody but not beaten, he was still ready to fight," he paused, overwhelmed by the memories. He was angry with her suddenly, for making him relive the night just to appease her own guilt. His tone, when he continued, was a little harsher. "Gunn had been wounded pretty bad. Illyria showed up next and she – she told us that Wes hadn't made it. So it was going to be just the four of us."

"Spike wasn't badly hurt at this point was he?"

"No, he was bruised and banged up, but not bad," Angel replied, then continued. "Then the army of demons showed up and the dragon and we faced them down, and went to work."

"You saw the stake go in him?"

"Yes. I was covering his right side, but when the dragon swept down for Gunn, I stepped back to get better leverage on my swing. When I turned back Spike was fighting three demons and was too preoccupied to see the one coming up behind him. Before I could warn him, he was staked in the back."

'And if I'd had a heart,' he thought to himself, 'it would have stopped beating.'

"And you saw him turn to dust?" she whimpered.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I – I screamed his name and then I had to fight my way back to him. When I got to where I'd last seen him, he was gone. And as I've explained before, all that was left was the stake, the coat and a pile of dust."

Buffy sat down on the couch and clutched the phone. "So you didn't actually see him dusted?"

"I saw the stake go through his heart Buffy. We don't survive that," he pointed out.

"He survived burning in the Hellmouth!"

"He came back as a ghost!" Angel bit back, finally losing the last of his patience. "Buffy – he is dead! Get over it. Get on with your life! Meet someone else, someone normal, someone you can really trust and love! Get married and have babies, I don't care – but let this go!"

Buffy jerked the phone back from her ear in shock and then, without hesitation, she hung up on him.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

William turned away from his computer and glanced out at the night. His pale face reflected in the glass, flickering in time with the lighthouse light that swung through the fog. He stared at his features in fascination, running a hand down his hard jaw, tracing the scar that bisected his left brow. No matter how many times he looked in the mirror he was taken aback by that one strange thing. William knew his own face. It had been the same face he'd had for his whole life. All his thirty years he'd had these startling blue eyes, these sculpted lips. He knew his face, he had pictures of himself at all ages and in the pictures taken after he turned twenty-five, William had the scar.

The only thing was, he didn't remember getting it.

Tracing it out, he wondered for the hundredth time, how could he have forgotten? It was a substantial scar, so must have been a substantial cut. Must have bled and hurt like a bitch but he simply didn't remember.

He'd asked his mum, his dad, even his older sister Cecily and they'd all get this strange look on their faces as if they too had forgotten and were disturbed by the fact that not one of them could remember.

And it wasn't just the scar on his eyebrow. There were other scars. The one in the middle of his back that looked like a large bullet hole and the one down his side where it looked like he'd had a knife taken to him. He'd even asked his doctor, but apparently, those injuries had been treated by emergency doctors that had long since transferred.

William turned his arm over and stared down at the inside of his right forearm at the biggest mystery of them all. The tattoo.

It was a stylized phoenix. The bird graced the inside of his arm, its body rising up from the intricately designed flames while and its red and gold wings spread majestically and wrapped around to his outer arm. It was a beautiful piece that drew many compliments and comments.

And William had no memory of getting it done. He didn't even know who had done the work. He'd visited numerous tattoo artists, hoping one of them would recognize the style or the technique, but despite their admiration for the work, no one had claimed it.

The door to his office opened and he spun the chair around and smiled at his assistant.

"Will!" she said, stopping and staring at him. "What the hell! Why aren't you ready?"

He linked his fingers together behind his head, leaned back in his chair, and stared at her with a mischievous smile.

"Sorry, love, time got away from me," he said slowly. He eyed her short skirt and long jacket and hummed a few lines from the Cake song. All it earned him was another glare and William remembered that he'd hired Jackie because she'd seemed immune to his good looks, British accent, and his wicked charm. And not once since he'd hired her had she proven otherwise.

As she used the file she was carrying to slap him up the back side of the head, he figured she wasn't going to change her tune today.

"You are not wearing that to a book signing!" she said, glaring at his black jeans and t-shirt.

He looked down, offended. "What? What's wrong with what I'm wearing? These are fine Calvin Klein's, they are!"

"I don't care if they were worn by Calvin Klein himself. You are not wearing jeans to a book signing."

She strode over to the closet and threw it open. Inside were the dozen or so suits she'd personally selected for him for just these occasions. Occasions where she forced him to wear them, then she had them dry cleaned and she hung them right back where they'd come from so that they'd be ready for the next time she forced him to dress up. Flipping through the rack, she pulled out a navy blue suit, glanced at it, then shook her head and put it back. Then, smiling, she pulled out her favorite and a recent acquisition, a fine lightweight charcoal gray single breasted suit from Nutters of Savile Row. Jackie turned and smiled at him.

"You'll wear this," she said and her firm tone brooked no opposition.

He tried anyway. "No tie," he insisted.

She sighed but nodded in agreement and reaching into the closet pulled out a crisp black shirt, a black leather belt with silver buckle and a long, silver, silk scarf. "No tie," she said. "But you'll wear the scarf."

He grimaced, eying the clothing with dislike. He liked his jeans and tees and his leather jacket. How was he supposed to get around on his motorcycle if he was get up all stiff and the like? But taking one look at Jackie's determined face and William knew not to argue.

"Alright, now get out of here before I change my mind!"

She scowled, but left the room, allowing him his privacy.

William grabbed the clothes and left his office, going into the large dressing room that separated it from his master bedroom. He stripped down and dressed, adjusting the collar and slinging the scarf around his neck, letting the silk tips lay flat. Turning left, then right, he eyed himself up and down and had to give his assistant credit. The woman knew how to shop and she knew the best bloody tailors in London. The suit fit like a glove: the pants just narrow enough to be hip and fashionable, the jacket fitted to show off his lean, wiry build. He hurried to his bedroom, grabbed his watch and a pair of old, scuffed Italian loafers and met up with her in the hallway.

Jackie spotted the shoes right away but said nothing, simply adjusted his scarf slightly and then nodded in approval.

"All good?" he asked, curling his tongue behind his teeth and grinning at her with boyish charm.

She cracked a smile and then ran her hands over his curly pale blond hair, tousling it a bit. "All good."

"Can we take the bike?" he asked with a grin.

She shot him a look cold enough to freeze vodka. "No."

William chuckled and followed her through the large house and down to the garage. She tossed him the keys to his 2010 Camero and like the gentleman he was, he opened the door for her and helped her in. Then he slid into his own seat and started the car, grinning at the rumble of the engine.

"God, I love this car," he said with a chuckle and glanced over at her stony face. "Come on Jackie, admit it, you love this car."

"It's an inanimate object. I have no feelings for it," she said with disdain.

He winced as he pulled out of the garage. "Ooh Jackie, so cold! Cold! It's not an inanimate object. It's got a heart and a mind of its own."

"Ridiculous," she scoffed, but he swore he saw a smile tease the edge of her lipstick red lips and he grinned. "We're downtown, at Beauvais' Books," she added, all business.

"Got it," he said, getting on to highway 17 and heading into town. He opened the sunroof to let the warm night air spill in and then he fiddled with the stereo until he found the music he wanted. Mozart's Requiem in D Minor filled the car. "What time is Dahlia expecting us?" he asked.

Dahlia Beauvais was the last surviving daughter of the great Beauvais family and she'd taken her love of books and her family fortune and channeled it into her little hobby, Beauvais Books, Charleston's premium book store. For true lovers of books who disdained the box stores with their warehouse feel and lofty ceilings, Beauvais' only claim to loftiness was Dahlia's lineage. When she wasn't at the store peddling Proulx and Poe, she was pampering the famous gardens of the Beauvais plantation over on the Ashley River.

William loved Dahlia Beauvais with a fierceness that was as beautiful as it was inexplicable. When he'd been writing his book, he'd spent numerous hours there, showing up at sundown with his laptop and his battered briefcase overflowing with scraps of paper and clippings. It had been William who had convinced Dahlia to get the wireless Internet and the cappuccino machine. And she'd done it, for him, to make sure that he returned, night after night, to sit with her while he wrote and she read.

When his novel had hit the bestsellers list, it had been a given that he would end his book tour with a reception and book signing where it had all began, at Beauvais'.

Jackie fiddled with her blackberry. "About eightish. She knows about your penchant for the night and of course it just plays with the whole dark and brooding image. She told her guests that you'd be there for eight, do a reading, sign some books, mingle with her friends and supporters and whatever fans managed to get invitations."

"A small crowd," he murmured, picturing Beauvais. It wasn't a large bookstore, but it was well stocked.

Jackie nodded. "Small but influential, you know Dahlia."

William chuckled and glanced over at Jackie. "Is that disapproval I hear in your tone Jackie love?"

She looked at him and sniffed before turning back to her blackberry. "You know how I feel about Dahlia Beauvais, she lacks tact."

William burst out laughing as he turned onto Broad Street and headed for the fashionable historical district. A lack of tact was the least of Dahlia's problems and one of the things he loved the most about her. She was a true original. Eccentric, outspoken, generous and caustic – every minute in her company was an adventure. She was never, ever boring and she was always entertaining.

As far as Jackie was concerned, all those things were not qualities, but limitations. It was why Jackie was so good at her job and why he'd hired her. She was his counter balance. He smiled over at her, bent over her blackberry, frowning. "God, you're bloody fantastic, Jackie," he said. At times she reminded him of someone…someone else just as rigid, just as organized and just as severe…but he could never quite make the connection.

He pulled up in front of the book store, grinning as the valet, dressed in a fine suit, stepped out to the car and opened the door.

"Mr. Bennett, I'll take her from here."

"Isaiah," William said as he got out. "Be gentle with her, she's new and we are still in the honeymoon stage."

"Yes sir," Isaiah replied as he slid into the car with a smile. "She's in good hands."

William turned and offered Jackie his arm. He smiled and waved at the line up of fans that had gathered around the storefront and formed the gauntlet that celebrities had been running for decades. While on his book tour there had been larger crowds in the larger cities, but this was his hometown and he was happy to see such a supportive turnout.

"William!"

"Mr. Bennett!"

Women and men shouted his name and flashed copies of his book, sharpies, and photo stills, hoping for an autograph, for a moment of his time, for some sort of memorable contact. Flashes went off and William plastered a nervous smile on his face. God he hated crowds. He loved his fans; he was ecstatic that someone wanted to read his stories, that all those words he labored over were loved and appreciated. But when they all gathered in one spot it was overwhelming.

Jackie tugged free and gestured to the crowd. "Go and mingle, sign some autographs, meet the people. Most of these guys won't have a chance of getting inside. I'm going to go in and make sure that everything is set up as I've asked."

He nodded and watched her leave, trying to hide the yearning on his face, the almost desperate need to follow her and hide from the crowd with their demands and expectations.

"William!"

"William!"

He smiled at the crowd and walked over to where they were waiting, four deep behind the velvet cords that Dahlia had set up more for looks than actual crowd control. She had great faith that her southern citizens would all behave in a polite manner.

"Hello," he said, smiling at one of the women. He quickly signed the book she handed to him. "How are you tonight?"

"Great!" she gushed, leaning forward and giving William a show of her generous curves. "I loved your book!"

"Thank you so much," he said kindly and moved on to the next fan.

One after the other, he signed books, smiled, made impersonal small talk.

Until he came face to face with the blond woman.

She was petite, probably about 5'2" and slim. Her shoulder length blond hair was cut in a straight bob and angled against her curved jaw and chin. Her features were delicate, with softly arched brows, green eyes and a wide, generous mouth. She was more pretty than beautiful. The sight of her made him pause and an odd sensation filled his chest as his breath caught and every bone and muscle in his body seemed to tighten. She wasn't smiling. Her face, although it probably had a normal, healthy tan, was as pale as alabaster and her beautiful eyes were wide with shock. She looked devastated. It was as if, William thought, he was watching her heart shatter and slowly fall to pieces at his feet, one shard at a time.

"Miss?" he asked softly, reaching for the book she held in her lifeless hand. She didn't take her eyes off of him. But her lips moved, soundlessly, opening and closing, forming words that he couldn't hear. "Miss? Are you alright?"

He leaned towards her, catching a whiff of her scent on the breeze. It was something warm and spicy, sandalwood and citrus, and it seemed like a heavy scent for such a delicate young woman. Their eyes met and William froze at what he saw there. Beyond the pain, beyond the betrayal, he saw recognition. This woman knew him and knew him well; and looking into her eyes he had the sudden thought that he was the cause of her pain, the author of that betrayal.

And he hadn't a clue how or why.

"Miss, let me help you," he said, reaching for her hand, needing to touch her. He was suddenly desperate to feel her, in hope that the touch, that human connection would fill all the blank spots in his life.

"Spike," she whispered harshly. "Oh God," she gasped, her voice catching on years worth of grief and tears. "Spike."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'm not sure who Spike is. But I'm William. William Bennet."

She reached out a trembling hand and William wasn't sure if she was going to slap him or caress him. "No," she whispered as she gently stroked his cheek. "Spike."

Then her eyes rolled and she slumped towards him.

"Bloody hell!" he yelled, catching her in his arms. He looked around in shock as everyone stared and the volume of the crowd rose to a glass shattering pitch. William lifted the woman into his arms and carried her towards the book store. "Please, move out of the way," he said as he hurried. Dahlia's carefully placed velvet ropes hadn't held and he had to push his way into the book store. "Jackie!" he yelled when he finally made it. "Jackie? Where the hell are you?"

"I'm right here!" she shouted angrily as she strode towards him. She stood in front of him, hands on hips and stared in disbelief. "What the hell happened?"

He shook his head. Spotting Dahlia, he shot her a crooked grin. "Can you shut the door Dahlia?" Then he turned to Jackie and the more subdued, but no less fascinated crowd, which had gathered inside the store. "I was doing what you told me to, signing autographs, mingling with the masses. Then I saw her, I said hi, she called me some other name, and then she fainted. I couldn't leave her there."

Jackie shook her head in disbelief. "Only you! This would only happen to you! I swear, I thought that incident in Miami was bad enough!" she said.

William rolled his eyes. She still hadn't forgiven him for "the incident" involving two Swedish air hostesses and an overflowing Jacuzzi tub. How was he supposed to know you weren't supposed to put bubble bath in the Jacuzzi? Why did the hotel supply it, he'd asked her, if you weren't supposed to use it?

"I had nothing to do with this one, I swear!" he said, looking around for a place to lay his current "incident".

"Of course not! It never is!" Jackie said, pushing through the small crowd to a love seat. "Put her here."

He did as he was told and backed away, feeling an inexplicable emptiness as he lost the physical contact with the young woman.

"Who is she?" Jackie asked, looking at him.

Dahlia found her way to his side and gently took his hand. She gave it an encouraging squeeze and he grinned at her gratefully and then turned his attention back to Jackie. "I have no idea. I told you, she was just standing there in the crowd with everyone else."

Jackie pulled the woman's light linen coat aside and found a small tan leather purse tucked to her side. She opened it carefully and pulled out a wallet and rifled through it.

"Jackie-" William protested but she cut him off.

"We need to know who she is," she said, and then paused as she pulled a drivers license from the wallet. "Buffy Summers."

William stilled as a shot of icy awareness flushed his spine. That name, it was unusual enough to ensure that it was never, ever forgotten. And he knew it….

He just didn't know from where.

Jackie looked up at him. "Do you know her?"

Automatically he shook his head, denying the knowledge, but he knew it was too late, she'd seen the recognition in his gaze.

"William, is there something we need to talk about?" she asked suddenly in a low voice, moving close to him.

"No," he whispered. He glanced passed her to the woman stirring on the couch. "Leave her to me. Go and get things calmed down, I'll be ready to start in a few minutes." He turned to Dahlia. "Love, can you get me a glass of water?"

Dahlia, her face oddly pale and stark, nodded and left.

Jackie shot him one more penetrating look and then she too turned and left.

Left him standing there alone, with the young woman on the couch.

He squatted beside the couch as she stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, looking around frantically for a moment and then settling on him.

"Spike? Oh my God," she whispered hoarsely. "It is you."

William shook his head. He didn't know who this Spike was, but in that moment, looking at her beautiful green eyes, he wanted to be him. One lucky bastard, that guy was.

"Sorry, love, you're mistaking me for someone else."

Then she did the one thing that convinced him that perhaps he was the one mistaken. She reached up and traced out the scar that bisected his left eyebrow.

"No, you're Spike. I would know you anywhere," she murmured. Her gaze was puzzled. "But why don't you know who you are? Why don't you know who I am?"

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Thanks to my beta who catches things when I'm in the zone and I get too caught up to see the details! Thanks Mabel!

Chapter Five

William looked down at her, "I'm sorry? Who I am? I'm William Bennett," he replied.

The woman, Buffy, closed her eyes as an expression of deep pain creased her features. "Oh God," she whispered harshly. "What's happening? How is this possible?" She hoisted herself up to a seated position on the love seat and stared at him. "How can it be that you don't remember?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Summers, but it seems that you've mistaken me for someone else."

She shook her head, putting the glass on the table. "Oh no I haven't. I would recognize you anywhere." She placed her hand over her heart and gazed into his eyes. "I know it here." She reached out and gently ran a finger over his eyebrow. "I know every inch of you."

He sat up straight at the implication of her words. Surely, if there'd been something of a personal nature between them, he'd remember it.

'Like you remember the eyebrow scar?' A snide voice echoed in his head. 'And the scar on your side?'

"There has to be an explanation," she murmured. "We've got to call Giles."

"Giles?" William asked. The name…it sounded familiar.

She nodded, leaning forward eagerly. "Yes! Yes – Giles and Xander and Dawn and Willow and, oh God – Angel!"

"Angel?" he asked, realizing how stupid he was sounding. "Xander?"

"Yes, they'll know how you survived and why you don't seem to remember," she said. A glimmer of a smile touched her lips and lit her eyes. "Oh, God, Spike. I knew it. I knew you weren't dead!" Then, unable to stop herself, she threw her arms around his neck.

William's arms automatically tightened around her and his entire body tensed in longing. He bit back a groan and closed his eyes. Just there, at the edge of consciousness, a mere slip of memory, teasing him, was the ghost of her smell.

"Miss Summers," he murmured.

"I know you know me," she whispered, leaning back and peering into his eyes. She tapped his temple. "It's locked away in there, we just have to find the key." Tears filled her eyes. She ran her fingers over his brows, down his cheek and rested them on his neck. "Spike…"

William shook his head, about to correct her when he saw her frown. He felt her fingers fumble on his neck and he shivered.

"Miss?"

"What the hell?" she murmured, her index finger finally settling on his pulse. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open.

The blood pounded in his veins as he watched her lovely face flush.

"What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "You have a pulse."

He gaped at her. "A pulse?"

"I wondered," she murmured.

"Wondered what?"

"How you hid what you were."

"What I was?" He was definitely sounding like an idiot now.

"Spike, you were-"

"William?" A woman's voice interrupted them.

He looked up at Dahlia. Her lined face was pale with concern and wisps of silver hair had escaped her elegant chignon. She'd lost her customary poise and her hand, as it reached out to lie on his shoulder, trembled.

"Dahlia?" He looked up at her, frowning in bewilderment.

"I-I know this young woman," she whispered. She glanced around and spotted Jackie heading towards them with a scowl on her face, Dahlia gripped his shoulder and exchanged a knowing glance with Buffy. "I have had Isaiah bring your car around back. You need to take Miss Summers and leave. Go to Beauvais Hall."

William's eyes widened. It wasn't what he'd expected. "What?" He glanced over as his assistant made her way towards them. "But Jackie," he murmured. "The reading, all these people…"

"William, do you trust me?" she asked, forcing him to look up at her.

He stared at her in shock. "I do, of course I do."

"Then do as I have asked. Take Miss Summers to Beauvais Hall. I will be along shortly, after I have taken care of Jackie and the guests. There is enough champagne here to soothe their disappointment," Dahlia said. She looked at Buffy and then at William. "But you need to go with her. William, you need to listen to what she has to say."

He shot to his feet. "Dahlia," he protested. "What in bleeding hell is going on here?"

Dahlia looked over at Buffy and nodded. "She will explain what she can," the older woman said cryptically.

Buffy stood and took his hand in hers. She shot the older woman a look of gratitude. "You heard her, let's go. Where's the back door?"

Dahlia pointed towards a dark hallway at the back of the store. "Go, quickly," she said.

Buffy pulled William after her as she hurried past the book shelves towards the back of

the store. He winced as she squeezed his hand and then he dug in his heels, trying to hold her back. He was no where near finished questioning Dahlia. He head Jackie call his name and Buffy looked back. "Ignore her, come on," she urged. "Hurry!"

He cursed under his breath and then setting aside his misgivings, he picked up the pace. They hurried through the dark hallways towards the back parking lot. Buffy burst through the doors and they skidded to a stop next to the Camaro where Isaiah held the door opened.

"Mr. Bennett," Isaiah said.

William slipped into the driver seat. "Thanks, Isaiah, help Miss Summers."

Isaiah nodded, but before he could even get around the car, Buffy was in, the door slammed behind her.

William gaped at her, wondering how she'd moved so quickly around the car. He gripped the steering wheel, wincing at the pain in the hand she'd held so fiercely. Who the bloody hell was this woman?

"Let's go!" she said.

He faced forward and popping the clutch, he shifted into drive and turned onto Broad Street. He eased the car into the late evening traffic, heading towards the Ashley River and Beauvais Hall. Shortly after, he merged onto the highway, left the traffic behind, and drove through the darkening night. The high beams of the car cut through the fog that slipped in from the river and trailed like Spanish moss across the road.

"The woman back at the store, the older one with the movie star hair, who was she?" Buffy asked. She kept glancing back nervously, as if waiting for someone to follow them.

"Dahlia Beauvais," William answered. "She owns the book store."

"How well do you know her? When did you meet her?"

He looked into the rear view mirror, her paranoia feeding his. "I met her five years ago," he explained. "When I moved here from London to work on my book."

"You live here in Charleston?"

He nodded. "On the outskirts, I have a house on the beach."

"Why Charleston?"

He glanced over at her, taking his eyes off the road for a second. She looked behind them again, and then stared at him. The pained, betrayed look had faded from her gaze and it had been replaced with something William had never, ever seen in a woman's eyes before. Steel. Pure, cold, hard steel. It was exactly like…

_Morgan_. William looked away and clenched the steering wheel as the thought slammed home. In that instant, this young woman, this Buffy Summers, had an air about her, a look in her eyes, a tension to her body that he'd described dozens of times in his novel. He may never have seen this before, but he'd imagined it.

"Why Charleston?" she repeated.

"I'd visited it a year before with my family and fell in love with it. It's beautiful and sort of gothic – seemed like the right place to write a beautiful, gothic novel."

She snorted and he frowned. "A writer," she murmured, shaking her head. "Those Powers that Be sure do know what they're doing."

"Powers that Be?" he asked in confusion.

She glanced heavenward. "Gods and Goddesses," she explained. "Where do you think all your inspiration came from, all that mythology in your book?"

He looked over at her quickly, feeling his temper stir at her dismissive tone. "My imagination! Listen here, pet, I've worked bloody hard on that novel. Blood, sweat and tears and all that, and then some. Don't give credit for my work to some bleeding karmic power." His rant came to a jarring halt as the tears pooled in her eyes and spilled over her cheeks. He turned his attention back to the road, leaned forward and peered through the gloom for the turn off to Beauvais Hall.

"What?" he asked.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Sorry," she said softly, all her edge, all her anger, dissipated. "It's – it's just that it's been a while since I heard that."

"Heard someone yell at you?" he asked. "Stick around, pet and you'll get some more, I've a nasty temper." He spotted the sign post and turned into the driveway. He pulled to a stop next to the gatepost and opened the window. Leaning out, he punched in the security code and the gates slowly and gracefully eased open.

Buffy watched in amazement as he drove through the gates and they closed behind them with a soft clang.

"Jesus, Spike, how much money does this woman have?"

"Lots," he replied. "And the name's William."

She glanced over at him, unwilling to apologize. She remained silent as they drove up the oak lined mile long drive. Beauvais Hall came into view, its white-washed brick gleaming in the moonlight.

"Oh my God," she whispered. "It's like freaking Tara."

He pulled the car around the back to and parked in the garage. Turning the car off, he sat there for a moment, trying to still his pounding heart. Trying to figure out what in Hades had just happened to his life.

In the dark, he felt her presence. Her scent had filled the car and he could hear her breathing. Even that seemed familiar. He had just met her, yet if he closed his eyes, William knew that he would be able to picture every last detail of her features.

None of it made sense.

It was unsettling.

And it all felt oddly normal.

As if he'd done this hundreds of times before.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" he asked harshly.

Her hand reached out in the darkened car and clasped his. "Let's go inside and I'll explain."

He pulled away from her and got out of the car. In the humid night air, he felt the sweat bead on his forehead. Angrily he unbuttoned his jacket and shrugged out of it. The silk scarf fell to the crushed oyster shell path and Buffy bent over, picked it up, and followed him. William pounded up the back porch stairs and fumbled with the keys. Before he could find the right one, the door opened.

"Mr. William!" A woman pushed the door open and stepped aside. "Missus Dahllie called and told us you were coming. Charlotte is preparing rooms for you upstairs. I put some snacks out for you in the parlor."

William smiled and Buffy caught her breath. He slung his arm around the housekeeper and gave her a quick hug. "Thanks Annabelle. Does Miss Dahllie have any of that bourbon on hand?"

Annabelle smiled, her dark eyes gleaming. "Of course! The bottle is on the sideboard with some glasses."

"You spoil me, love," he said, planting a kiss on her cheek. He straightened and looked back at Buffy, losing the smile. "Follow me."

He walked through the kitchen and down the hall to the front of the house. He didn't pause in the parlor, but went straight to the sideboard and poured himself a large glass of bourbon and tossed it back. He leaned over the sideboard, head down for a moment, and then he straightened, poured himself another glass, and turned to faced her.

"Now, you're going to answer some questions," he said angrily, his blue eyes sparking like gas flames. "Starting with this one: who the bloody hell are you? And then, then you are going to follow it up with who Spike is, how you know Dahlia, and what in bleeding hell was all that back there about me having a pulse. Last time I checked, I've had one for the last thirty-five years!"

Buffy sat down onto the settee, landing hard on the straight backed, uncomfortable piece of furniture. She stared up at him, her eyes wide, her lips trembling. When he talked like that, he sounded so much like his old self that she was filled with amazement and happiness. He was there! Right in front of her, alive and well! And then, her elation was quickly followed up with anger and bitterness at all the years they had lost.

"Spike-"

"Bleeding hell, woman!" he shouted and lunged across the room and leaned over her, hands pressed to the settees' armrests. "My – name – is – William!"

Instead of shrinking like he'd expected, her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed and she sat up, going nose to nose with him.

"Back off," she bit out.

To his credit, William didn't back off right away. He stared at her, his gaze lingering over her features, striving to remember where he'd seen her, how he knew her. "Answer my questions," he said.

"Step away from me and I will," she replied, more softly this time.

William straightened and backed away.

"My name is Buffy Summers," she said, staring at him closely, looking for any sign of recognition, any reaction.

"Where are you from?"

"California," she replied. "I lived in Sunnydale and then L.A and I've recently moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. My fri-my family owns a beach house there."

He frowned, crossing his arms over his lean chest. "Sunnydale? Why does that sound familiar?"

"It should," she murmured, her face lightening in hope. "It was all over the news a few years back."

He nodded, recognition dawning. "The earthquake," he said and Buffy nodded and waited for more. "The entire city disappeared."

"Did you live there when the earthquake happened?"

She bowed her head and clasped her hands. Her grief was so palpable that it filled the room. William's anger faded away and he wanted nothing more than to go to her and take her into his arms and reassure her that whatever it was, whoever it was that had hurt her, he would take care of all of it.

He fought the urge and continued instead with his questioning.

"How do you know Dahlia? Back at the bookstore, she said she knew you," he asked.

Buffy shook her head in genuine confusion. "I have no clue. I swear, I've never seen her before."

He shook his head. "This doesn't make any bleeding sense!"

"Who is Spike?"

She looked up, her green eyes swimming in tears as she inhaled a deep, shuddering breath. "He – he was my enemy, my nemesis and my lover and friend and finally my champion," she whispered.

His eyes widened at the implication of her words and what she was inferring.

"Was?"

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her fist to her mouth. "He died in the apo-the earthquake in Sunnydale."

William shook his head in disbelief. "If that's the case, how in sodding hell could I be him? Not to mention," he held his arms wide open, "if we've been lovers, I'd remember it, pet."

"I don't know how this happened," she said, standing and moving towards him. "I don't understand any of this. You died, I saw you die right before my eyes, but then there were rumors you'd shown up in L.A and were working with Angel and then – then I was told you died, um, again."

"In another earthquake?" he asked sarcastically.

"Sort of…but not really."

"Bent," he muttered. "You are completely bent! A complete nutter! Jackie warned me about people like you! I can't believe I fell for this ridiculous tale."

"Sp-William – I can prove it," she said desperately.

He stared down at her, frowning.

"How?"

Her gaze focused on his left eyebrow. "Can you tell me how you got that scar?"

He froze.

When he didn't answer, she continued.

"You can't tell me can you? What - have you forgotten? Let me guess, there are a few holes in your past? Things you can't remember?"

He shook his head and tried to turn away, away from her and her insistent truth, but she reached out and grabbed him and her strong grip held him in place.

"I – I don't remember."

"I know how you got that scar," she said. "I know because you told me."

He stared at her.

"You got it fighting with someone like me," she said. She took his hands in hers.

"Someone like you?"

"A slayer," she replied. "A vampire slayer. I'm a vampire slayer, just like Morgan, in your book, is a demon hunter. And you got that scar killing a vampire slayer during the Boxer Rebellion in China."

His mouth opened and closed and his hands, clasped gently in hers, trembled.

"The Boxer Rebellion? In China? That was over a hundred years ago!" he whispered.

She nodded. "William," she said. "You - you were a vampire."

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"A vampire?" he asked slowly.

Buffy nodded. "Spike was a vampire and I – I am a vampire slayer."

"And you were lovers?" he asked carefully.

Out of all the questions he could have asked, Buffy was surprised he chose that one. She nodded again.

"And how the bloody hell did you manage that?"

"Very carefully," she replied, her heart clenching at the memories of their tumultuous relationship.

He smiled, a cold, hard smile, and then he stepped away from her. Her hands fell to her sides. "Miss Summers, I'm not sure what your game is. I'm not sure what you want from me. But my book, these are my own ideas, these are my characters and my stories. And I do not appreciate what you are implying!"

"Implying? I'm implying something?" she asked in confusion.

He nodded in fury, pointing at her angrily. "Oh yes! You're implying that I stole these stories from you somehow! I don't know where you're getting your information. Morgan is my creation! Oh sure, the Grigori are in the Bible, as are the Nephilim and their fate. But everything else – the Orders, Rain and Morgan – their love story – these are my creations!"

Buffy bowed her head, praying for patience. "William, I'm not saying that you stole these stories or these characters from me or from anyone else. They _are_ your stories, sure, they're different, but the basis of those characters, of that story, it's yours even more than you think."

"What are you saying?"

"Your character Morgan is based on me," Buffy said, moving towards him. "Rain's character is based on Spike. Their relationship, their tangled, tormented love is ours. Yours and mine."

"Get the hell out of this house," he said harshly. "Now. You'll be hearing from my lawyer."

Buffy gaped at him. "You have a freaking lawyer?"

He straightened and pointed to the door. "Get out!"

"William!"

He turned to the door, where Dahlia stood, looking every single one of her eighty years. He hurried to her side, took her elbow and helped her to the wingback by the window.

"Dahlia, what do you need? Are you okay?" he asked, bending over her in concern.

She waved his concern away. "No, William. I am fine. Sit down." She looked over at Buffy. "Miss Summers, sit down. It is nice to finally meet you."

William straightened and stared at Dahlia. "What's going on here? Dahlia, how do you know this woman?"

"Sit down, please, William," she said, her voice shaking.

He sat down in the matching wingback and Buffy sat back on the settee.

"You know what I am," Buffy stated with surprise.

Dahlia smiled. "I have always known who and what you were. I have wanted to meet you for many years, but there was never an opportunity." She looked over at William. "And then, when William showed up at my bookstore, I knew it was only a matter of time before you did also."

She fumbled with the locket at her neck and finally untied the chain and carefully opened the locket. She handed it over to Buffy.

"Miss Summers, this is my granddaughter Savannah," Dahlia said. Her lined face was soft with remembered love and the remnants of grief. "She was my only grandchild and I practically raised her myself. Her mother died in a car crash when she was four and so she spent her time living here with me and with her father in Miami. Until she was twelve and he remarried and started a new family, and then Savannah just lived here all year round." Dahlia sighed, nodding when Buffy handed the locket to William. "She was a beautiful girl, smart, popular, athletic and good natured. And then, one night, it all changed."

Buffy's breath caught.

"She became secretive," Dahlia continued. "Her grades started slipping, her friends stopped coming around. I caught her sneaking out at night and I confronted her, like any proper grandmother would. And that is when I found out the truth." Dahlia looked up and stared at Buffy, her blue eyes faded with age and regret. "Savannah was like you, Miss Summers."

William shook his head, "Dahlia, you're tired. It's been a long night –"

"I will beg you to watch your tongue young man and let me speak!" she snapped.

He sat back in shock and shut his mouth.

"She was a slayer?" Buffy said.

Dahlia nodded. "One night she did not come home. I sent Isaiah out looking for her at dawn. He brought her back an hour later. One of those demons, a vampire, had outsmarted her." Dahlia looked at Buffy. "Miss Summers, may I ask a personal question?"

Buffy nodded.

"How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-eight," Buffy answered, bewildered.

"And you became a slayer in 1997, correct?"

Buffy nodded and Dahlia smiled sadly. "My granddaughter was a slayer Miss Summers, but she was unlike you in one very important manner." Dahlia looked down at her hands, rubbing absently at an age spot. She sniffled and looked back up. "She was not as powerful or as good a slayer as you must have been to have lived this long. You see, Miss Summers, Savannah was chosen at the age of sixteen and she died at the hands of a vampire when she was only eighteen. In 1997, the year you were chosen."

Buffy gasped. "Oh, my God. Ms. Beauvais, I'm so, so sorry."

Dahlia waved her apology away. "Oh, it is not your fault, Miss Summers. You have got enough guilt weighing on those young shoulders of yours; do not add my tragic loss to it. I have had years to accept what Savannah was and to deal with her death. She was a very, very special girl."

Dahlia turned to William. "Miss Summers is exactly who and what she says she is, William. I have never lied to you, never had cause to. And I swear, I never will. This is the truth."

His face was ashen. He knew Dahlia, adored her caustic wit and her sharp temper. They'd spent hours together and he'd never once doubted her sanity or her sense of honor. He couldn't start now.

"How come you never said anything to me?" he asked. "All those nights at the store when I was tossing ideas and theories about, and when you were reading my manuscript, you never said a word. Bloody hell, Dahlia, my novel! It's all about demon hunters and the like and you never said a word?"

She smiled. "You gave me back my life those nights, young William. In your heroine Morgan, I saw glimpses of what my Savannah could have become with time and luck." Dahlia shrugged. "She ran out of both, but in your hands, in your words, I could visit with her again."

"How did you know about me?" Buffy asked.

Dahlia looked over at her. "Savannah's watcher, Nigel Clara, came to me and shared the particulars with me. I kept up with your exploits and adventures, Miss Summers, for many years. At least until the closing of the Hellmouth in Sunnydale; and then with the Council's collapse and all, Nigel and I lost touch."

William shook his head in disbelief. "It's incredible, this is." He looked at Buffy. "You are a vampire slayer? A real, bleeding demon hunter?"

Buffy nodded. "To each generation a slayer was chosen by the fates. When she dies," she glanced over at Dahlia, "a new slayer is chosen. At least that's how it worked until the closing of the Hellmouth when a pretty potent magic spell re-jigged the selection process. Now there are hundreds of us."

He rested his head in his hands, sighed and looked up.

"Where the bloody hell do I fit in to this?"

"William," Dahlia said softly. She opened her mouth, as if to say something and then reconsidered. "I was informed, by Nigel, that there was a vampire known as William the Bloody, Scourge of Europe. He became a vampire in the late 1890s."

"Spike," Buffy filled in. "He – he later called himself Spike."

"And you both think that this Spike – and I – are one and the same?"

Dahlia hesitated and seemed to be choosing her words carefully. William realized that while she certainly wasn't lying to him, Dahlia wasn't telling him everything either.

"Yes, William. I believe that Miss Summers is correct. I do not know how it happened, by magic or by fate, but you have been sent back, here, as a mortal."

"Why?"

She looked away from him, down at her hands and replied, quite simply. "I do not know."

He shook his head. "Dahlia, this isn't possible, love," he said gently. "I have a family. My mum and dad live in London. I just talked to them two days ago. I have an older sister and two nieces and nephews." He tapped his temple. "I have memories here of my life! I could not possibly have lived the life of a centuries old vampire up till a few years ago. What you're saying, it's mad."

"William, in a world where vampires and werewolves and demons exist, anything is possible."

"That world is of the imagination," he insisted. "It's all in my head and in books."

She shook her head. "No, William, it is all in your heart."

He sighed. "This is completely bent! There's no way that this could have happened, there's no explanation!"

"But there is," Buffy interjected.

Unable to sit still anymore, William stood up and paced over to the fireplace. He looked into the mirror hanging over the hearth and glared at Buffy. He blamed her for bringing this all down on his head. Just that afternoon his life had been perfect. Perfectly normal. He'd been a bestselling author coming off of a nation wide tour. He had a beautiful home by the ocean, a chick magnet of a car, a closet filled with Savile Row suits and an annoying but superbly competent Australian assistant. He had money and health and good looks. The only complaint he'd ever had and never voiced out loud to anyone, was the lack of a special someone to share all his good fortune with.

And then this woman had literally fallen into his life and turned it upside down.

"You have an explanation," he stated sarcastically.

"The Shanshu Prophecy," she answered.

"The what?"

"The Shanshu Prophesy," she repeated, striving for patience. "You do know what a prophecy is, don't you?"

"Yeah, I've read Harry Potter," he replied.

Buffy took a deep breath. "There was a prophecy that stated that a vampire with a soul would play a major part in saving the world from an apocalypse and his reward would be a return to his human form."

With each word she spoke, William's eyebrows rose higher and higher. When she was done, he held up his hand. "Let me see if I've got this Shanshu bugaboo correct," he said slowly. "First there has to be a vampire with a soul?"

Buffy nodded.

"Now, I've done my research," he said sarcastically. "And I know that vampires don't have souls. They are demons _without_ souls."

"Yes, but-"

"I'm not done," he bit out. "Second, said ensouled vampire would have to save the world from an apocalypse. Last time I watched the evening news the world was going to hell in a hand basket, love, but I've yet to see the four horsemen!"

"The Sunnydale-"

"And last, but not least, why – WHY – would a vampire with supernatural strength and immortality want to become a real boy again?"

Buffy stared at him. To see him standing before her, looking so much like Spike, sounding so much like Spike, but spewing those words was torture. Buffy felt like he was peeling away each layer of her skin, flaying her open and poking at her battered insides.

This is what it must have felt like, she thought to herself, when she had stood there and told him that he was beneath her, that he was a monster, that she could never love him. This was what it felt like to have your heart ripped out of your chest and set on fire. She had done this to him; she had to find the strength to survive this karmic justice and set things right for both of them.

"William, in your book, what did Rain do to prove his humanity to Morgan? To prove to her that there was something noble inside him, that he was worthy of her love, that his humanity matched hers?"

William stared at her.

Buffy stood and slowly walked towards him. She tried to smile. "You see, William, that's how I knew it was you. When I read those words that only Spike had spoken to me, I knew it was you." She took his hands into hers and closed her eyes, remembering that heart breaking moment. _"She shall look on him with forgiveness and everybody will forgive and love and he will be loved." _

Their eyes met over their clasped hands.

"In the end, Spike, you earned your soul and you died saving the world to prove that you were a better man. To be the man you thought I deserved; to be the man that you thought I could love."

"Bloody hell," William whispered hoarsely. With a panicked look on his face, he pulled his hands from hers and fled.

Buffy watched helplessly as he left. Then she turned and looked down at Dahlia.

"Do not worry, child," the older woman said quietly. "William is a good man, an insightful man. He will see the truth in you and in his own heart."

Buffy bowed her head. "I never imagined it like this," she looked up. "I'm not sure how I imagined it, but it wasn't like this – I thought he'd at least, I don't know, be the same person."

Dahlia smiled crookedly. "If the Shanshu prophecy is to be believed, by his sacrifice Spike exorcised his demons and was returned to his human form. Miss Summers, William and Spike are two very different people. One is a poet and writer with a romantic soul; the other was a demon with vestiges of that romantic soul."

"He loved me," Buffy whispered. "With and without the soul, he was capable of loving me." She looked at the doorway through which William had fled.

Dahlia stood up and leaning forward, pressed a gentle kiss to Buffy's cheek. Buffy inhaled the scent of roses and talcum powder and closing her eyes imprinted the moment into her memories.

"If he loved you then, as a demon, just imagine, child, how much he will love you now, as a man," Dahlia murmured.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

He smelled her before he saw her and for a split second, the thought crossed William's mind that perhaps there were, in fact, some remnants of supernatural powers after all. But as the breeze carried her scent across the night, he blamed it on good old fashion nature. There was nothing super about it. It was just a good sense of smell, and nothing at all to do with a sixth sense.

"Apparently you didn't get the hint earlier, pet," he called out. "I walked out for a reason."

She stepped from the darkness of her room out onto the balcony.

"I came to apologize," she said softly.

He turned around and leaned back against the wooden railing of the balcony that encircled the second floor of the house. Curse her, but Annabel had placed Buffy in the room next to the one he customarily used when visiting the estate. Thankfully this would be for one night only and in the morning, she'd be gone.

He crossed his arms and stared at her. She'd showered and changed and he could smell her shampoo, a light floral scent that tempted him. William wasn't immune to her charms. He was a healthy, able bodied man and it had been months since the incident with the airline stewardesses. Buffy was a good looking woman and there was no denying there was a connection between them. He could feel her heat from four feet away and its effect on him was – well – warming to say the least.

"Tell me, pet, what exactly are you apologizing for? Ruining my final book reading and signing? Pissing off my assistant and ensuring that I have to suffer her sodding bad temper for a month? Or how about upsetting Dahlia and making her relive that nonsense about her daughter?"

She tilted her head, her blond hair swinging against her chin, and she did something William didn't expect. Something he had no way to defend himself against.

Buffy smiled.

A long, slow, seductive smile.

William caught his breath. Had he thought she was pretty? Bloody hell, she was gorgeous. Beautiful. And if he wasn't mistaken, that look in her stunning eyes spoke volumes about what she wanted.

She wanted him.

"I'm sorry for how I went about all of this," she murmured, moving towards him. She stopped and rested her hands on his chest. "The last thing I wanted to do with you, William, was argue and fight."

He dipped his head towards her. He inhaled deeply of her scent and felt something inside him respond to her on a visceral level. It literally stole his breath and all coherent thought from him. Just the smell of her hair. What would it do to him to touch her?

"Jesus, pet, what's this? A new tactic?"

Buffy ran her hand up his chest to his shoulders. "Is it working?" she asked. "Are you accepting my apology?"

"Still not sure what you're all sorry about," he murmured. "But I will admit that these tactics signal a definite improvement."

She looped her arms around his neck and pressed up against him. They both tensed as the heat and awareness between them heightened instantly.

"I'm sorry I just didn't do this right off the bat," she said.

William's eyes widened and he cocked a grin. "Would have been difficult, that. With all the onlookers and you fainting and all." His hands slid down to her hips and he pulled her against him, pressing her into his groin and the evidence that her new tactics were working.

Buffy gasped and for a second, tears shimmered in the corners of her eyes.

"It's been so long," she whispered.

He closed his eyes, not needing the reminder that in her mind, he was more or in some ways less, than who he really was.

"Then, love, let me fix that for you."

William leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. He caressed her hips and then bending slightly at the knees, he lifted her higher up against him, groaning when Buffy wrapped her legs around his waist. He plundered her mouth, sweeping his tongue across hers. He nibbled on her soft bottom lip and moaned when she returned the favor. Buffy buried her hands in his hair, digging her fingers into his scalp as she wrapped herself around him.

Gasping, he broke the kiss and pressed his cheek to hers. He could feel her hot breath against his ear and he winced as the heat coursed through him. He ached, throbbing with the need to bury himself in her, to feel her tighten around him, squeeze him until he trembled and exploded and saw stars.

William knew it would be like that. He didn't know how; but he knew that being with this woman would be the single most beautiful moment of his life.

"This is how it always was with us," Buffy whispered. She closed her eyes and ran her hands over his softly curling hair. It was longer than she remembered, and more blond than platinum, but the feel of it wrapping around her fingers was heartbreakingly familiar. "There was always fire between us."

"Fire can destroy," he replied.

She traced a finger over the tattoo that graced his arm, wondering where it had come from. He hadn't had it when he'd been one of the undead. "And fire can create."

"Which was it with – with you and Spike?" he asked, stumbling over the name.

Buffy's eyes fell shut and she curled up against him, clinging like a burr. "Mostly destructive. Until the end."

"How did he die?"

"He burned saving the world," she said softly.

"Sounds heroic."

"He was my champion."

And I, William thought to himself, am nothing but a writer. A mere, mortal, writer.

"William, what can I do to convince you?" she asked. Her legs slid down to the floor and she looked up at him.

He read the longing in her gaze. The longing for him to be the man she'd loved; the need for him to love her and to be her champion.

He wasn't a champion.

If what she said was true, she was a slayer, a woman with supernatural abilities who liked a bit of the monster in her man.

And he was just a man minus the demon.

He stepped away from her, his body going cold almost instantly, missing her heat.

"Nice try, pet," he said bitterly. "But, apology not accepted."

He pushed her away and stepping past, disappeared across the balcony and into the darkness of his room.

***

When Buffy woke, the sun was spilling across the hardwood floor of her room and a warm, humid breeze sent the shell pink muslin curtains billowing. She stretched, sinking deeper into the feather mattress and then, with a groan, she pushed the sheer bed curtains aside and climbed out of bed. She missed the step and hopped to the floor, enjoying the cool feel of the wood against her bare feet.

She strode across the room to the French doors and opening them, she stepped out onto the balcony and the scene of last night's humiliation.

Glancing over at Spike's room, she saw that it was still dark and there was no sign of life. Did he keep the same hours now that he was human? As difficult as it was for her to believe, she had felt the blood pounding through his veins and she had felt the heat coursing through his all too human body. He'd lost the cold hard steel of his demonic form, but Buffy couldn't complain. How could you complain about a hot, lean body of rippling muscle? About soft, supple lips that kissed with a hard, barely contained fury?

She couldn't complain, really. But if Willow had been there, Buffy would have had much to complain about.

Who was this guy with her lover's blue eyes and chiseled features? This man with the same accent and expressions? He looked and sounded like Spike, but beneath the skin where a demon had raged and the poet had hid, blood and heat now flowed and the poet owned the soul.

When she looked at him, she saw Spike. But when he spoke, he was a stranger. When he moved, it was still with purpose and athleticism, but it lacked the grace and menace that had characterized his former self. Buffy leaned against the railing and looked out over the river. The current and breeze caused ripples and as she watched, a fish leaped gracefully, arching for a moment in the sparkling sun and flopping back into the water.

And there was the crux of the matter, Buffy thought to herself. When she'd determined that William Pratt Bennett was Spike, she'd had a vision of how it would all go about. She'd find him and he'd be a bit lost, trapped and confused by his former self and his new existence (whatever it was). She'd sweep in, fill in all the blanks, and save the day and they would live happily ever after. She hadn't given much thought to what his new life would be like. She'd simply pictured him lonely and tortured, pouring out his former fantasies and memories onto the pages of his novels.

Oddly enough, she hadn't once thought that he wouldn't know her. She'd assumed that not contacting her all these years would have been part of whatever deal he'd struck in exchange for his life. She'd thought that the book had been his message in the bottle to her.

Buffy bowed her head. God, she'd had it so wrong. Spike hadn't been the fish out of water. He'd embraced his new life, living and breathing it fully. He had a family, friends, cars and houses and a successful career with a growing fan base. No, he wasn't the fish out of water. Buffy was.

The sound of a door slamming below echoed across the yard and Buffy leaned forward and watched as a gardener stepped down onto the path and began raking the crushed oyster shells that made up all the gardens paths on the property. At that sign of life, Buffy turned and went back into the house. She would get cleaned up and dress in the same clothes she'd worn the day before and then she would figure out what to do with, well, with William.

***

Dahlia looked up as Buffy stepped out from the house onto the porch.

"Good morning, Miss Summers," she said, gesturing to a chair. "I hope you slept well."

Buffy sat down at the beautifully set table and unfolding the napkin, laid it across her lap. She smiled up at Dahlia. "I did, thank you. That bed was amazing."

"Civil war era," Dahlia replied and smiled. "Not the mattress of course! I have those custom made and shipped up from New Orleans. Nothing like sleeping on a custom designed feather mattresses. Makes you sleep like the righteous and wake feeling like a queen."

"Not a bad way to start off the day," Buffy answered dryly and thanked the woman for pouring her a cup of coffee. She glanced around, noting at once that the table was only set for two. "Where is William?"

Dahlia sighed. "He ate earlier I'm afraid and he left at dawn. Not surprising to you of course, but he keeps odd hours. He was gone before the sun was up."

Buffy set the delicate china cup down and stared at the older woman. "He's gone? Where?"

"I suppose he went back home, to Charleston. We did not speak before he left."

Buffy sat back and shook her head. "He ran?"

Dahlia grinned. "Like a scared rabbit."

Buffy tried, for a moment, to visualize the analogy and failed. But she got the point; Dahlia was on her side. "Huh, that was my M.O., not his."

"You usually ran when the going got tough?" Dahlia asked in surprise.

Buffy buttered a scone and piled it high with jam. "Only when it came to him. Half the time I was running towards him and smashing into our crazy relationship and the other half of the time I was running from him and us."

"That sounds exhausting," Dahlia commented.

Buffy nodded around a mouthful of scone.

"And how did Spike deal with all of your running?"

Buffy thought back to those years. She saw him standing guard outside her window, smoking his cigarettes as he leaned against the tree. She saw him by Dawn's side, with Joyce, fighting with the Scoobies and finally she saw him that last night, standing fast with the world burning around him as he urged her to go, to run.

"He was always there, one step behind me, keeping me grounded."

Dahlia's eyes sparkled. "Perhaps, Miss Summers, it's time for you to do some of the chasing. Spike and William both have one major thing in common. They are men, and men can only do so much chasing before it wears down that which makes them men."

Buffy sighed and pushed a crumb around her plate. "I just wanted a normal life," she mumbled.

Dahlia laughed gaily. "Why would you want that? Darling, you are young, you have super human strength and you're as pretty as a rose! Why on God's green earth would you want a normal life? Normal is boring!"

Buffy grinned. Looking across the table at a woman who had taken normal and turned it upside down and completely around, she had to wonder if Dahlia didn't know some secret the rest of them were just chasing.

And speaking of secrets...

"Dahlia, when did William get that tattoo on his arm? Has he ever mentioned it to you?"

Dahlia frowned, trying to remember if they had ever had a conversation about it. "Now that you mention it, I did ask him about it once. And it was odd."

"Odd how?"

"He told me that he did not remember getting it. But that it was just there."

"Like the scar on his eyebrow?" Buffy asked.

Dahlia nodded. "Yes. And there is one on his side and one right in the middle of his back."

"Over his heart…." Buffy whispered. "And he doesn't know how he got any of them?"

"No, he does not."

Buffy set her fork down in frustration and shook her head. "How can he live with these – these blank spots in his memory and accept them, yet not accept the possibility that he isn't who he thinks he is?"

Dahlia smiled knowingly. "He is a man, darling. There is simply just no use trying to understand them."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "He drove me crazy then and it looks like he still is!"

"That is his gift I suppose," Dahlia said as she sipped her coffee. "And your curse."

"Were you ever married?"

"Child, I was married for three years. My husband, bless him, died in a boating accident."

"And you never remarried?"

Dahlia shook her head and sipped her orange juice. "No, never needed too. I had my daughter and then my granddaughter." She stared out over the yard and waved at Isaiah who was strolling up the path, a basket of fresh caught fish banging against his knee. "And I had love. I did not need anything else."

Buffy glanced from Dahlia to Isaiah and smiled. Dahlia knew men and she knew love. Between the two of them, they would figure William and Spike out.

***

"About time you showed up!"

William spun around and glanced at Jackie. She stood in the doorway, arms crossed, glaring.

"Jackie, I can explain," he started. He'd thought a lot about this on the way over, he'd known she'd be furious and he couldn't afford to lose her. His career needed her and there were times when William admitted that he needed her too.

He tossed last night's clothes on the bed and walked towards her. "Let me explain. I acted like a bloody git and -"

"I've typed up your last series of notes and left them on your desk," she said coldly. "You have to fly in to New York on Tuesday for a meeting with Elliot and I've left your itinerary and your hotel information in the red folder on the desk as well." She pushed past him and angrily grabbed the suit from the bed. "I'll send this to the cleaners."

"Jackie," he begged. "Would you stop and listen to me." He reached out and grabbed her arm and she froze, staring down at where his hand gripped her upper arm. "Let me go!"

He took his hand away. "I'm sorry."

She folded the suit over her arm and looked at him. "I've worked for you for a year and half now," she began.

William nodded, nerves tightening his throat. This sounded far too much like the beginnings of a good-bye speech and he wasn't ready for it. Goodbyes were difficult for him, had always been difficult for him. He avoided having to say goodbye to anyone because it just ate away at him.

"And I believe I've made it perfectly clear that I'm damn good at what I do."

"The best," he murmured.

"I keep you organized," she began, counting off her fingers. "I keep your appointment book in order, I make sure you are on time wherever you need to be. I dress you, I make sure your home is cleaned on a regular basis and I practically feed you."

"Thank you," he said humbly.

"I remind you of important birthdays and I clean up your messes. I type up your notes and I read and provide feedback on your drafts."

"I couldn't do it without you."

"And for all this, you pay me an outrageous salary."

"You are worth every dime."

"All I ask," she bit out. "Is that you do your job and not embarrass yourself or me or jeopardize your career."

"I'm so sorry, Jackie," he said.

"You left a book signing and a crowd of your supporters high and dry last night. Things like that will be overlooked only so often before people become fed up. And then – no matter how great your books are, if your readers can't have some sort of personal connection with you, they become just books and you're just some writer on the discount table. There is a difference William, between a hack and an artist." She sighed, looking every one of her forty years. "I don't work for you because you pay me well. I work for you because I believe in you. And that, William, is something you better not tamper with."

She turned on her very high heel and left.

William groaned and ran his hands through his hair and tugged at it as he strode through the door and headed for his office. Jackie had mentioned that she'd typed up his latest set of notes; he'd go over them and start working on his next chapter. He'd lose himself in his work; it had always served him well in the past.

He sat at his desk and fired up the computer, looking out the wall of glass to the ocean. He thought about the night before, about the woman, Buffy Summers. When he'd walked out on her last night, that hadn't been the end of it - she'd haunted his dreams. And in his dreams he'd been strong and powerful, able to crush tombstones and bring down houses. But over and over in his dreams, Buffy had brought him to his knees. He'd begged for her touch, for her attention, for her approval and her gratitude and she'd rained a storm of emotions down on him. In his dreams they had come together, clashing like thunder clouds and setting fire to each other. They'd fought side by side, back to back and then he'd thrown her against a wall and ravaged her.

William had woken up at five more exhausted than ever and he'd hightailed it out of Beauvais Hall as if the hounds of Hell were nipping at his heels.

With a sigh he turned to the pile of papers in front of him, Jackie had made elegant order out of his crazy notes. Chapter ten of his second book had proven to be his personal rock of Gibraltar, unmoving and solid – it was going nowhere. He turned to the computer and opened the file and began re-reading it.

_"Morgan, you need to stay away from him," Gavin said angrily. He threw the robe at her in disgust. "He's a freak of nature; his very existence goes against everything we fight for. We exist to kill him and others like him." He stared at the tousled covers on the bed. "He's a monster, Morgan. The monster that killed our brother."_

_Morgan crumbled to her knees, overwhelmed by his disgust and the heavy weight of his truth. "I can't stop," she sobbed._

_Gavin leaned down and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her. "If you can't stop then I will fucking stop it for you!"_

William stared at the blinking cursor. "He is a freak of nature…a monster…"

How could Morgan love Rain? It was the question that drove his whole novel and the entire series. What made these women capable of seeing past the demon to a redemptive quality that not only enabled them to love the monster, but helped the monster to love himself?

Had Buffy managed it? Was it even possible? Or was William right, and these things were best left to late night dreams and the pages of novels?

TBC


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

Jackie stayed away for two days and William had to admit that it was easier with her not around. The couple of times they did interact, it was very obvious that she was still angry with him and the last thing he needed was someone glaring at him and scolding him as if he were a child.

So he enjoyed the two vacation days by drinking copious amounts of beer and eating take out pizza and wings. He went for his usual run on the beach Sunday morning and attempted working on the novel.

Mostly, he tried not to think about Buffy. He didn't know what to think about her and her story. Or Dahlia's story for that matter. He was convinced she was keeping something from him, but he also knew in his heart that she fully believed what she'd told him. That meant that if her story was true, then Buffy Summers was a vampire slayer. And if that was the case, wouldn't it stand to reason that everything else Buffy had told him was true?

By Sunday evening, he finally gave in and called his mother.

"William! What a lovely surprise, how are you?" asked his mother Beth.

"I'm good, Mum, how are things in London?"

"Hot, have you watched the news? It's a heat wave." she replied "How's the weather in America?"

"Hot in Charleston, can't say much about everywhere else." He pressed his fingers to his forehead and stared out the window. "Mum, can I ask you something?"

"Of course dear, what?"

"I've asked you this before…" he began.

An uneasy silence came over the line and he continued. "You know, the scar on my eyebrow, you're sure you don't remember how I got it?"

"William, I've told you, I can't remember. It must have happened when you were a boy! You fell so many times, you were always bumping your head and scraping your knees," she said with a forced laugh.

"But, Mum, when I look through photos of me, right, the scar doesn't show up 'til the pictures after I turned twenty-five," he pointed out.

"I – I don't know what to say," she murmured.

He knocked his head against the window in frustration. "It doesn't make any sense! How can I not remember it? What about the tattoo on my arm? What about the scars on my chest and back? I might be able to accept not remembering one, put it down to one pint too many– but, Mum – a tattoo this size? It must have taken ten bleeding hours at least!"

"William, calm down," she said soothingly.

"I can't calm down!" He turned away from the window and paced back and forth across his living room, rubbing his face. "There are entire episodes of my life that I can't remember. If I can't trust the past, how can I believe anything or anyone?"

"You're working too hard," she said. "Why don't you come home for a visit?"

William ignored the invitation. Going to London and dealing with a hovering mum and an inquisitive dad was the last thing he needed.

"Mum, have you ever heard of the name Buffy Summers?"

Silence.

"Mum?"

"William, I've got to go. Mary is here to pick me up, we're – we're going to meet your dad and Steve down at the pub for lunch," she said hurriedly.

William pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it incredulously. What the hell had just happened?

"Uh, okay," he said.

"Take care of yourself."

"Bye, Mum."

William hung the phone up and turning around, stared at the clock hanging on the wall. He quickly did the calculation. Wherever his mother and Mary were going, it definitely wasn't to the pub for lunch. Not at eight o'clock in the evening.

He bit back a curse and stood there shaking his head.

His own mum had just lied to him.

Just what the bloody hell was going on here?

The doorbell rang, startling him.

He strode from the living room and down the hallway towards the front door. Not bothering to check the peephole, he unlocked the door and threw it open.

"Yes?"

Buffy looked up at him.

"You," he muttered.

"Hi!" she said with a grin and a jaunty wave.

"How did you find me?"

"Dahlia." She turned and waved to Isaiah. "Got a ride too."

William glared at Isaiah. The man he'd once considered his friend just waved and smiled and then, to William's horror, put the car into drive and left.

"Where the hell is he going?"

"I'm assuming he's going back to Dahlia's. They're never apart for long, those two."

William looked down at her. He caught sight of the leather satchel at her feet and his gaze widened. "What – is – that?" he asked, pointing.

Buffy glanced down at the bag and then smiled back up at him. "Oh that? My suitcase."

"Suitcase?" he repeated stupidly.

She picked it up and pushed past him into the house. "Yeah, I'm staying for a couple of days. Did you honestly think you'd gotten rid of me that easily?" She walked down the hall, peered in to the large formal living room, dining room, and ended up at the back of the house in the open concept kitchen and family room. She stood in front of the wall of glass, dropped her suitcase to the floor, and stared out at the ocean.

"Wow," she murmured. "Great view."

"Thank you," he said automatically. Then he shook his head, angry with himself. What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?"

She turned away from the view and smiled at him. "Chasing you."

"Why would you do that?"  
"Because it's my turn to," she explained.

"It's your turn to chase me?" he asked. "You're completely daft, you are."

She lost the smile and went to him, taking his hand in hers. "Give me a chance," she begged. "Give me a chance to prove to you that I know you, that we know each other, and that everything I told you is true."

He shook his head. "No! You can't just barge in here and expect to stay."

"You have doubts, don't you?" Buffy asked softly.

He paused and stared down at her, silent.

"You're beginning to wonder. Let me guess, you called your mom and asked her again about those scars, that tattoo and she couldn't give you the answer you wanted."

He shook his head and backed away from her.

"How could you pass up the chance to know the truth about yourself, William?"

"You can't prove it," he finally said.

"I can try," she replied. "I have to try. I loved you once and you loved me. We're meant to be together and I'm not letting any prophecy keep us apart. I lost you twice and I'm not going for a third."

"You're completely bent," he muttered.

"But you are starting to wonder," she said with a smile. "And that buddy, is better than nothing."

The phone rang and he reached for it.

"Hello?" he barked.

"William, did Miss Summers arrive?"

He sighed, bowing his head. "Yes, she's here."

"William, do you trust me?"

"With my life," he murmured. He wasn't sure why exactly, but he followed his gut.

"In your books you have created an entire world where the impossible is possible if only you peel back the layers of conditioning and believe," she said. "I need you to trust that world that you created and peel back the years and the stories you have told yourself. Listen to her, William. Open up and believe her."

"Aah, Dahlia, do you know what you're asking me?"

She chuckled. "Of course I do. Just as I know that you will do it."

"And how do you know that, pet?"

"Because you are brave and imaginative, when you let yourself be. I read your book, I know your thoughts. They are real. Real!"

He nodded. "Alright." He breathed in deeply. "I do trust you."

"I know. And I will not betray that trust."

"What are you not telling me?" he asked suddenly.

"William?"

He sighed, rubbing his eyes and looking down at the floor. "I can sense that there's more to this that you aren't telling me, yeah? How can I figure it out if I don't have all the pieces?"

"William," she murmured so softly he had to strain to hear her. "There are things that I am not ready to talk about yet. Things that you are not yet ready to hear. When you are, then I will be too and then you will know everything."

He ground his teeth in frustration. His entire existence had become cryptic and all the women in it were suddenly speaking in riddles.

"Right, then," he bit out. "Seems like I haven't much choice."

"Be patient," she said. "And tell Miss Summers not to give up on you. Right now when I can hear you say the words."

William rolled his eyes and turned to Buffy. "Dahlia wants me to tell you not to give up."

Buffy smiled. "Tell her that I won't."

He shook his head. "Did you hear her?"

"Yes, I did," she said, chuckling. "I love you, William, no matter who or what you are."

"I love you too," he whispered and then he hung up the phone. He paused for a moment, head bent, and then he turned to Buffy. "Alright, pet, you win the first battle."

Buffy smiled and held out her hand. "Come here, I have something to show you."

He let her take his hand and lead him over to the leather couch. They sat down and she pulled the satchel to her, unzipping it and pulling out a long, black leather coat.

William's heart froze and his entire body stilled. His hands, reaching out for the coat, trembled.

"Where did you get this?"

"It was yours," Buffy murmured, handing to him. "You wore it everywhere, it was a trophy of sorts."

"Trophy?" he asked as he shook out the coat and ran his hands down it. It was scuffed and torn, as if he'd worn it through a battle.

"Apparently this isn't the original, at least, that's what Angel told me. But I think he was just – I don't know – being Angel. But Spike stole this coat from a slayer he killed in a New York subway in 1977. It was his badge, his uniform."

"I know this coat," he said.

Some of Buffy's tension faded. She hadn't known how he would react. Best case scenario, he would feel the bond with the coat, and like Dorothy's ruby shoes, the leather coat would bring him home. Worst case, he'd toss it aside in disgust.

Typical of Spike, he met her somewhere in between.

"In your book, Rain wears a coat just like it. Where did that idea come from?"

He shrugged. "My dreams, my imagination. Whenever I pictured him, he wore it, a coat just like this one."

"Just like yours," she said.

He stood up and, almost against his will, he pulled the coat on. It fell around him with a whisper and he stiffened. Goose bumps rose on his flesh and he trembled in reaction. The tattoo on his arm burned, as if scalded.

"What the-" he said, pushing the sleeve back and staring at the tattoo. His eyes widened and Buffy jumped to her feet and stood next to him. Together they gazed at his arm. "It's burning," he whispered.

She ran her finger over it. "Spike, it's glowing."

He was too distracted to correct her. Christ, he thought to himself, how could he? His tattoo was glowing and burning and even he couldn't deny that the moment he'd put the coat on, he'd felt different. He'd felt unlike himself and yet more like himself than he ever had.

Quickly he shrugged the coat off and gave it to her. As soon as he lost contact with it, his tattoo stopped glowing and burning.

They stared at each other.

"What the bleeding hell was that?"

"It's the past Spike," Buffy replied.

"Felt like it was coming back to haunt me," he muttered.

She reached out and gently ran a finger over the gorgeous tattoo. "Something is trying to come home, and I think it has something to do with the tattoo." She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. "I also think it's time to call in the reinforcements."

"Reinforcements?"

"I don't know a whole lot about the Shanshu prophecy," she explained. "But I have friends who do."

TBC


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

William showed her to the guest room and to give him credit, Buffy thought he was pretty easy going about it all.

"There's a phone right there." He pointed to the nightstand.

"Okay," she answered. "Do you have a picture of the tattoo?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I sent it to several well known artists when – when I was trying to figure out who had done the work."

"That must have been fun trying to explain," she said, striving for a lighter tone.

He actually smiled. "Indeed. Try telling someone that you were drunk and passed out for at least ten hours while someone did this." He held up his arm.

She chuckled. "Nice. I want to email it to Will so she can start researching."

He nodded. "When you're done, meet me in my office; it's right next door."

"See ya in a sec."

When he was gone, she unpacked her bag and then sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the phone. She took a deep breath. How was she going to tell Willow? My God, how was she going to tell Dawn?

She quickly dialed their number.

"L.A coroner, you bag em', we tag em'."

Buffy paused, frowning. "Xander?"

"The Buffster! How are you!?"

She chuckled. "Good, great actually. Um, has the Council taken on a new contract that I don't know about?"

"Nah, I'm just screwing around. Dawn challenged me to answer the phone with something new and different every time."

"Great, so I was the lucky one to get the coroner's office?"

Xander chuckled. "Yeah, the last telemarketer that called got the Death Star."

She rolled her eyes. "Is Will there?"

"Yeap, just a sec," he stepped away from the phone and yelled.

Within seconds, Willow was on the line.

"Buffy! How are you?"

"I'm good – overwhelmed."

Willow paused for a sec. "Overwhelmed? Why? What happened? Where are you?"

"I'm in Charleston."

Silence.

"Willow?"

"Charleston, South Carolina?" Willow asked, her voice cracking.

Buffy frowned. An odd undercurrent had suddenly infused the conversation; Will's tone was just – off.

"Is there another?"

Willow exhaled sharply. "For my sake I really hope so," she murmured.

Buffy froze. The thought came to her, clanging as loudly and insistently as church bells. As soon as she thought it, she dismissed it. No. It wasn't possible. Willow wouldn't have…

"Will?" she whispered.

"Oh God, Buffy, I – I didn't want to say anything to you," Willow cried.

Buffy felt all the sensation seep away from her lower body as her stomach dropped to the floor and her knees went weak. She was grateful to be sitting because if she'd been standing, she'd have fallen.

"You knew? You knew he was alive and you didn't say anything?" Her voice cracked.

"No! Buffy I didn't know he was alive!"

"But you suspected?"

Willow sighed. "Yes."

"When?"

"When the book first came out. Because of the name, Grigori is Greek for Watcher, I had it flagged and when I read it I sort of wondered if, maybe, Spike had something to do with it."

Buffy looked down at the clenched fist in her lap. "And you didn't say anything to me? Even when I asked you about it? You didn't think, gee – I should tell Buffy that I think she might be on to something important?"

"Angel insisted-"

"Angel? Angel knew about this?" Buffy bit out.

"I mentioned it to him," explained Willow. "He insisted that it wasn't possible."

"You both kept this from me," Buffy said slowly in amazement.

"We didn't want to get your hopes up," Willow said. "You've been hurt so much already. There didn't seem to be a point in setting you up for disappointment just when you were getting your life back together."

"But it is _him_ Will."

"What?"

"Your suspicions were correct," Buffy bit out angrily. "Spike is alive. He did write that book!"

There was no response and this angered her even more.

"You have nothing to say? Nothing?" she yelled.

"Buffy?" Xander asked, his voice replacing Willow's.

"Where is Willow?"

"She left. Crying. What's going on?"

"Willow betrayed me, that's what's going on. Angel, I expect it from. But Willow?"

"Buffy, what did she do?"

"Spike is alive, Xander. And Willow suspected. She told Angel and they did nothing about it. They didn't tell me. They simply fed me a line of bull over and over again. Poor Buffy can't handle it. Let's protect poor Buffy!"

"Wait a sec, back the soul train up Buff. Spike is alive?"

Overwhelmed, Buffy bit back the sobs that threatened. "Yes, he's alive. I found him. But he doesn't know anything. Doesn't know me, doesn't even know who he was."

"And you're sure it's him?"

"Without a doubt," she whispered. And she was certain. In her heart and in her soul, she knew it was Spike.

"I – I don't know what to say Buff."

She sighed. "Just promise me that you didn't know."

"God, no. I had no idea."

She had to believe him.

"I'm going to send you a picture of a tattoo, I want Dawn to research it and see what she can find. Don't tell her about Spike. And I want you guys to find out everything you can about the Shanshu Prophecy."

"What about Angel?"

"Screw him," she said bitterly.

"Buf-"

"I don't care what you do or say to him, Xander; just keep him out of it."

"That might be impossible," he said. "Angel knows more about the prophecy than anyone else."

"Just keep him away from me and from Spike."

"I'll try."

They said goodbye and Buffy hung up and sat on the edge of the bed, staring off at nothing.

"You okay?"

She looked up. William was slouched in the doorway, looking dangerous in a black t-shirt and jeans. Buffy had to remind herself that there was nothing dangerous about him anymore. He was utterly and truly leashed.

"I need a drink," she said, standing.

He grinned, curling his tongue behind his teeth. He straightened and stepped aside. "That I can take care of with extreme pleasure. Come with me."

She followed him back to the family room and curled up on the couch while he poured each of them a generous tumbler of bourbon and brought the bottle with him back to the couch. He lounged at the other end and placed the bottle on the coffee table.

"Want to talk about it?"

"Nope!" she said as she took a big sip of her drink. Her face burned and she coughed, tears smarting her eyes. "Whoa!"

He grinned as he sipped his. "Take it easy, slayer."

She froze, her eyes peeled on him.

"What?"

"That's what yo- Spike used to call me all the time, in that exact tone."

"A tone of amusement and condescension?" he asked with a smile.

She grinned back, feeling much, much better suddenly. "Yes. That's exactly it. No wonder it drove me so crazy."

"You loved it, don't deny it," he said.

She looked down at her drink and then glanced up at him through her lashes. "Yeah, you're probably right."

He took another sip. "So. What do you want to do? Movie? TV? Music? A rousing game of bridge?"

She chuckled.

"How about a small game of Truth or Dare?"

He choked on the sip he had just taken and stared at her. "Right. You're joking."

"No."

He shrugged. "Truth or dare then, you go first."

"Okay, William. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Have you ever dreamed of being a vampire? Had dreams where _you_ were the vampire, not some character in a story?"

He eyed her over his glass. "Yes."

"Repeated dreams?"

"Yes."

"Did you –"

"My turn," he said, holding up a hand.

Buffy grinned. "Sorry, got carried away."

"Hmm…that's what you call it. Truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"Was Spike the only vampire you slept with?"

Buffy winced. "Um, no."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Really? A fang banger then?"

"No! And I take exception to that term. It was never about the banging," she retorted.

William laughed. "So it was about the fangs?"

She waved her empty glass in his face. "No! It – it wasn't about any of that. With either Spike or – or Angel."

"You've mentioned him before. So he's a vampire as well. Did he have a soul?"

She frowned bitterly. "So he said. At times I wonder." She held out her glass. "More bourbon."

He smiled and bending forward, grabbed the bottle and filled her glass.

She sipped it, grimaced, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "We've done this before, the drinking thing." Glancing around the room, she continued. "Mind you, in less comfortable digs."

"Where?"

"You lived in a crypt, in Sunnydale."

William stared at her. This time, there was a part of him that believed her. In his dreams of vampires and demons, the dreams he had, as she'd correctly assumed, built his novels around, he'd lived in a crypt. A crypt with a battered recliner and a TV. He shook his head, rubbing his eyes.

"Your turn," he said.

"Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"I dare you to take your shirt off and show me those scars that you don't remember getting."

He stared at her, his grin fading. "How do you know about them?"

"Dahlia mentioned them. But even if she hadn't said anything, I'd recognize them," she explained. "The one on your back, top left? That was the stake that took you out that last time in L.A."

His hand wandered up to his heart and he stared at her, his face pale. How could she know these things?

"Chest, one over your heart?" she asked. She tossed back the last of her drink and set the glass on the table. The she slid across the couch towards him. "You went through some trials, to get your soul back. We never spoke about them, but I know that what you went through was torturous. Having your soul back was difficult at first," she knelt on the couch next to him. "Afterwards, you tried cutting it out."

She took his hands in hers and looked down, her nail trailing, lightly scratching over the faint memory of a scar that encircled both wrists. "Your hands were cut off by a slayer gone bad. I – I wasn't there for you." She looked up at him.

William had forgotten how to breathe. Her hands on him, her nails just lightly scratching, stole every coherent thought from his mind and every last breath straight from his lungs. The urge to push her back to the couch and cover her body with his was strong and he shook from the effort it took to resist it.

"I dare you William. Take off your shirt and show them to me," she whispered.

He pulled his hands from hers and began unbuttoning his shirt. His eyes never left hers. Buttons undone, he slipped the shirt from his shoulders and let it slip to the floor. Buffy leaned forward, breaking the eye contact to look down at his naked chest. She ran her hand down his chest, over his nipple and the sickle shaped scars over his heart. William inhaled sharply, his nipples hardening.

Buffy pressed her hand against the scar on his side. "Glory," she explained, her voice hoarse with her own arousal. "A hell Goddess who captured you and tortured you, trying to get you to tell her about my sister Dawn."

Buffy shook her head. "I don't know why all these scars are still here," she murmured, leaning forward. "They had healed." She pressed her lips against the rough, puckered scar on his shoulder.

William gasped and his hands rose to her hips, pulling her closer, needing to feel her against his heat.

"Buffy," he gasped.

"Mmm?"

"What are you doing?"

Her hands were all over him. Caressing his lean chest and his well defined arms. Finally, she crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her forehead against his.

"Reminding you," she murmured.

"Of what?"

"Of this," she said and then covered his mouth with hers.

William growled and wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her as close as possible to him as they kissed. The heat and the arousal quickly spun out of control as their lips and tongues meshed and fought. He nipped at her bottom lip and felt her moan vibrate through his entire body. He plundered her mouth, driving his tongue in and out in a poor imitation of what he wanted to do with other luscious parts of her.

And she met him, thrust for thrust, her tongue and teeth and lips aggressively demanding satisfaction and satiation. His hands gripped the bottom of her shirt and he pulled it up, breaking the kiss to tug it over her head. He paused and looked down at her small breasts cupped in a pink lace bra.

"Beautiful," he muttered. "God, you're beautiful."

Suddenly shy, Buffy ducked her head. "Thanks."

He ran his hand lightly down her chest, his fingers teasing the lacy edge of the bra. Her nipples hardened and he flicked his thumb over her, causing them to tighten even more. He lowered his head, his lips following his fingers, pressing hot kisses against her soft skin. First his lips, then his tongue and finally his teeth, gently teased her nipple through the lace, the material adding to the sensation.

William was lost; lost in dreams and memories of other nights, other times.

Everything about this woman was familiar. He knew without looking that there was a tiny beauty mark to the left of her right nipple. If he turned her over and kissed a path to her bottom, he'd find a heart shaped birthmark between the two dimples there.

William didn't know how he knew these things. But he did.

"Buffy," he moaned, coming up and covering her lips in a passionate kiss. He wrapped his arms around her and carefully laid her down on the couch and covered her body with his own. His arousal pressed into the hot cradle of her hips and he ground into her, loving the feel of her bare skin against his.

"Spike," Buffy gasped, digging her nails into his back as he lightly bit the tender skin beneath her ear.

William froze.

"Spike?" she asked, running her hands slowly up and down his back.

William lifted and braced himself on his two arms and stared down at her. Her hair was mussed, her face was flushed, and her lips swollen from his kisses.

She raised her hand and gently ran a finger over his lips.

"I've missed you," she said, tears spilling from the corners of her eyes and trailing down into her hair. "Oh God," she sobbed. "I've missed you."

He wanted to comfort her. He wanted to take the rest of their clothes off and bury himself into her over and over again.

But he couldn't.

Not until the name falling from her lips like a prayer was his.

William pulled back, and grabbing his shirt from the floor, he stood up and walked away from her.

TBC


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

Buffy did not sleep. Used to patrolling, she hadn't had a decent night's sleep in years. This was going to be one more aspect of "normal" life that was difficult to adapt to. It didn't help that Spike was in the room up the hall, sleeping without her. When she thought back to the nights they had spent lying in each other's arms, sleeping and talking, it broke her heart.

She wanted that back. That intimacy. The security of knowing that she was loved.

She fell asleep shortly before dawn and woke a couple of hours later to find the note he'd left on the fridge telling her he'd gone for a run. He had also left her a picture of his tattoo. She went to his office, intent on faxing it to Xander. Once that was done, however, she sat at his desk and looked around the room.

It was difficult to imagine Spike sitting at a desk doing anything. When she tried to imagine him writing, it was a vision of him hunched over a battered journal, perched on a sarcophagus in a shadowy crypt. Instead, there was this warm and welcoming space with a large antique mahogany desk, a comfortable leather desk chair, wall to wall bookcases, and a state of the art computer and sound system.

Determined to find a connection to her Spike in this room, Buffy stood up and began scanning the books. It didn't take her long to find the signs.

William had a huge selection of poetry. Everything from Suffi mystic poets to Ginsberg. But his collection was predominantly poets from the Romantic and Victorian periods. Strange taste for a _modern_ man, Buffy thought to herself.

There were also quite a few history books, mostly involving England and the Victorian period.

"Obsessing much," she mused, her fingers running over the titles.

By his desk, her fingers paused over what looked like black, leather bound journals. Without hesitation, she slipped one from the shelf and opened it.

It wasn't a journal, but a collection of handwritten, original poems. William had dated each one, the earliest being May 2004. Buffy walked over to the chair and sat down.

The first was titled _Not Fade Away_.

She read out loud,

"_Night cast a dim view, _

_On all our accomplishments._

_Hand in hand, blue clouds crashing in thunderous fury,_

_Sapphire tears, Illyria's pain._

_Hell hath opened her mouth, weeping _

_For what is at stake, _

_Friendship and loyalty_

_Ragged bedfellows do make."_

Buffy covered her mouth to hold back a gasp as tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She flipped the pages and continued reading what was, essentially, Spike's story told in verse, in reverse.

_"Bound by invisible chains_

_Bound to stygian darkness, fired up_

_By Hades torments._

_Unsubstantial. Inconsequential._

_Fading, fading, ghosts of memories_

_Cling to the remnants of dreams._

_Hell bound, alone, unseen and _

_Unloved."_

As she read, Buffy traced Spike's memories from the battle in Los Angeles, to his run-in with the rogue slayer Dana and his days as a ghost. Her tears poured down her face, making blotches on the clean white pages, disturbing the pristine condition of his verses.

_"Chosen, the one_

_Who lusts after the beast but loves_

_The man. _

_Make me bleed, _

_Cleanse the blood, her _

_Fire makes a baptism of my soul_

_Into her hands I entrust_

_My broken and scarred heart."_

"What are you doing?" a harsh voice interrupted.

Buffy jumped and looked up, the journal tumbling to the floor.

William lunged across the room, his face contorted with fury. "Who gave you the right? What the bloody hell do you think you're doing?"

She shot to her feet, grabbing his hands and holding him still.

"Look at me!" she shouted.

William was so taken back by the strength of her grip that he obeyed immediately.

"You started writing these at the same time that Spike supposedly died," she explained. She grabbed the journal from him and opened it, jabbing her finger at the date. "May, 2004 – Illyria was a – a – friend of yours! They were all your friends!" She turned to another page. "This one, you write about being unseen, a ghost. William, Spike came back as a ghost!"

He stared, unblinking and Buffy continued, determined to make him see the truth. "And here, here you wrote '_Your slave in chains, bound by your whim to suffer your pleasure, Centuries have not prepared me, Let me rest in peace_." She couldn't control the sobs. "_Let me rest in peace_, you sang those words to me. You begged me to let you rest in peace, to leave you alone."

"Then why didn't you?"

Her gaze locked with his. "Because I couldn't. I couldn't imagine not having you in my life. I couldn't and I still can't. I – I needed you."

"As what, your sodding punching bag?"

Buffy winced.

He looked away from her and pulled the book from her hands. He opened it, riffling through the pages. "Are you saying that here, when I write about '_her, the One, the chosen I follow on my knees, begging_', I'm writing about you?"

"Yes!"

He spun around and in a fury, threw the book across the room. "This isn't possible!" he raged. He bowed his head and dug his hands into his scalp, pulling on his hair as if the pain would make the entire situation disappear. "It's not possible that _I_ didn't exist!"

"You did. It was just different," Buffy explained, knowing in her heart that it was an inadequate answer. She needed to show him. She needed him to see what she was, what he had been. Perhaps then he would start to believe.

He stared at the journal, lying on the floor, its spine broken from the force of his throw. "All my nightmares are in that book," he murmured, completely deflated and defeated. "Every nightmare I've ever had I've poured onto those pages." He turned and looked at her. "And now you want me to believe that my nightmares were my reality?"  
"It wasn't all bad," she replied, her heart breaking. She reached for him and took his hands into her own. "There were good moments. You were a hero. In the end, you had friends. I loved you. It wasn't _my_ nightmare."

He rubbed the back of his neck in a gesture so reminiscent of Spike that Buffy had to close her eyes and block out the sight. "I honestly haven't a clue where to go from here," he said.

"Let's go out," she suggested. "Let's go out, like two normal people and just spend the day together." She needed him to see that there was a bond between them, one stronger than the pull of his nightmarish memories.

He looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "Right, you want to go out? Like on a date?"

She grinned and dried her tears. "Yeah, a date." She dragged him to the door, away from the journal, away from the dark memories. "Movie, popcorn, dinner, a walk in the park. When was the last time you went on a date?"

He thought for a moment. "Two months ago."

Buffy felt a pang of jealousy. "Oh," she said.

He shrugged. He couldn't stay in the house. Its walls were beginning to feel like a prison to him. "Okay, I'll go along with this."

"Go change, I'll meet you on the porch in thirty minutes," she said.

"Yeah," he turned away and then glancing back, continued. "Wear trousers. We're taking the bike."

"Bike?"

He walked away without answering.

***

William pulled the chair back and sat Buffy at the table. Their waiter handed her the menu and William the wine list.

"Mr. Bennett, a pleasure to have you with us this evening," he said as he unfolded their napkins.

William glanced around the courtyard. In the glimmer of evening light, the gas lanterns shown and the flowers and lush foliage seemed to breathe with a life of their own. The restaurant in Charleston's French Quarter, known as 82 Queen, was his favorite.

"Thanks, Johnny, be sure to tell Chef Brad that I'm here this evening with a guest," he said.

The waiter glanced over at Buffy and smiled. "Welcome to 82, miss," he said. "Can I start you both off with some wine?"

William glanced over at Buffy who was watching him in disbelief, eyebrows raised, and eyes wide. He grinned.

"Johnny, I'll have a bottle of your 2005 Opus One."

"Excellent choice, as always, Mr. Bennett."

The waiter left and Buffy leaned over the table. "Snobby, much?"

He shrugged. "I've got money now. I enjoy it." He sipped his water and stared at her. "Tell me about yourself, your life, your family, your friends."

She fiddled with the corner of the napkin and glanced up at him. "The truth or the white washed version we tell strangers?"

He leaned back as the sommelier arrived at their table and opened the bottle of wine. He poured a small amount into a glass and Buffy's mouth dropped as William tilted the glass and examined the wine. He then swirled the glass and stuck his nose in it and inhaled deeply. Finally, he swirled again and then took a small sip. Glancing at the sommelier, he nodded in approval and sat back, arms crossed as the wine was poured.

"Good grief," said Buffy.

"What?"

She shook her head. "Nothing."

He swore he heard her mention something about pompous and Giles, but he couldn't be certain.

"Tell me the true version," he said as he sipped his wine. "I think I can handle it."

"I hope so," she muttered. She sipped the wine carefully, as if it was going to scald her tongue and she was surprised at the rich, fruity taste of it. "This is yummy."

He pursed his lips in a familiar smirk. "For what it costs a bottle, it better be. Now, get on with it. The true version please."

She sat back with the glass, getting comfortable. "Okay, I live with my sister Dawn."

"The key," he murmured.

Buffy gaped. "What did you just say?"

He shook his head. "What?"

"Key, you just called Dawn the key," she insisted.

"I don't know what I was thinking," he said. He waved her on. "Keep going."

Buffy shook her head, sighed, and continued. "Dawn was sort of dropped into our lives, these monks took an entity known as the key and transformed it into a human – Dawn – and then gave her to us as my sister. She had an entire history, memories, a life and everything was as if it had really happened. Only it hadn't. It was all fabricated memories."

William stared, his mouth slightly open. "Okay," he finally said. "Maybe I'm not ready for the truth."

Buffy raised her eyebrows and looked at him over her glass. "Sounds familiar doesn't it? Anyway – we saved her and the world from evil – too many times to count. Now we live in L.A. We run what is left over of the Watcher's Council."

"The Grigori?" William said in confusion.

Buffy jumped on it. "No – but see the connections? The Watcher's Council was a group of researchers, academics, specialists in the supernatural. They kept up on all the demon business going on, and then one of them was selected as a guide and trainer for the slayers."

"And I named my series after them," he responded weakly.

"Yes. Anyway – the entire council collapsed back in 2003, but we've been working on reestablishing it in L.A. Giles is the last known member of the original council; the last couple of years he's been trying to track down any remaining members. Dawn is our head researcher. And then there are Xander and Willow, we've been friends since high school. Willow is a first class witch."

"Seriously?"  
Buffy nodded. "Seriously. Everything you write about in your books, it's real stuff."

"Right then, so together you fight evil?"

"Yeah – Xander, Giles, Willow and Dawn and about fifty slayers."

"As a result of that spell that played around with the selection process," he filled in, remembering an earlier conversation.

"Exactly!"

Their waiter approached. "Mr. Bennett? Would you like to place an order?"

William glanced over at Buffy and she gestured to the menu. "Go ahead, order for the both of us. Seems like you would know what would taste the best."

He folded the menu shut. "We'll have two bowls of the she crab soup, and then the lady will have the pecan crusted grouper with grits and fried green tomatoes and I will have the crab cakes. Can you make sure Brad spices up the red rice? He knows how I like it."

The waiter nodded and slipped away.

William turned back to Buffy who was still looking at him as if he'd dropped in from another planet.

"Far cry from chicken wings and blooming onions," she murmured.

He grinned. "I love chicken wings." He shrugged. "You just can't eat like that everyday. Must keep my manly form, you know."

She bit back an inappropriate comment about his more than adequate body. "I can't get used to you being all cultured and stuff."

"Spike wasn't cultured?" he asked casually, reaching for his glass. He didn't want to come across as too interested.

"He painted his nails black and bleached his hair."

William choked on the sip of wine he was taking.

Buffy held up her hand. "All that being said, he wrote beautiful poetry and he loved to read. He helped Dawn with her English homework."

William had a pained look on his face. "Black nail polish?"

She nodded. "Very Billy Idol."

He shuddered and she chuckled. "It suited you-him."

He cleared his throat and took a drink of his water. "So if you have all these friends and all this noble work that you do, what are you doing in North Carolina?"

She looked bleak for a moment, and then smiled forcibly. "I'm retiring. Going back to school."

"Can slayers retire?" he asked, remembering Dahlia's granddaughter's untimely death.

Buffy shook her head. "Not usually. It was a 'to the grave' sort of career. But now, with so many slayers, the world can do with one less."

"What are you going to school for?"

"Counseling," she said shyly.

He smiled. "Still trying to help people, yeah?"

She ducked her head and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess that's it. That's me. Miss Handy Helper!"

He raised his glass. "Well congrats, I think it's great."

She chinked her glass against his, meeting his gaze and flushing warmly under the glow of his approval. "Thank you."

The waiter placed delicate bowls of soup in front of them and William smiled at her.

"Bon appétit."

***

Buffy wrapped her arms around his waist and tucked her head between William's shoulder blades. She was grinning ear to ear, wishing it were possible to stop time. She'd have to ask Giles the next time she saw him, she definitely needed a spell that she could cast to freeze every single perfect moment she shared with Spike.

The day had been filled with them.

From the surprise afternoon shower that had sent them huddling under a store front awning, to the decadent pecan pie dessert, Buffy had had to pinch herself numerous times to make sure it wasn't a dream.

Each time she looked over at Spike it was like a little shock. As the day progressed, she began to see him more as William and less as Spike. It frightened her, but it was as if the best of Spike's soul had taken shape and was sitting across the table from her with the fading light shimmering off his blond hair.

The rumble of the bike lessened as William geared down.

"Where are we going?" she called out.

"My favorite place in Charleston," he shouted back as he slowed the bike down and turned on to Cunnington Avenue.

Buffy stared ahead down the shadow draped street.

"You've got to be kidding me," she said as they rode past the white pillared entrance to Magnolia Cemetery.

William geared down and braked. He pulled off his helmet and looked around.

"This is where I come to write," he explained. "I come in the afternoons and walk through the old tombstones and then find a tree to sit under and I write out pages and pages of notes."

Buffy hopped off the bike and Spike set both helmets on the seat. She followed him as he began walking across the grass.

"What did you write about when you came out here?" she asked. She wanted to reach out and take his hand in hers and she wondered what he'd do. God, how many times had they walked through a cemetery? Had they ever held hands?

"I wrote all that poetry you stumbled across," he responded dryly and glanced over at her. "And I wrote stories about the demons in my novels. I worked out all their angst here." He stood and opened his arms, and turned around in a slow circle. "Ironic isn't it? A cemetery was my inspiration and here you're telling me it was my home for over a century!"

She reached out and gave into the instinct that was clamoring; she took his hand in hers. "Hey," she said softly.

He turned towards her, his face half lit in the shadowed gloom of moonlight and tombs. In that instant, William was captured as if in an oil painting, a chiaroscuro study of light and dark. In his eyes she could see the dark depths of a tormented soul. And she could also see the light shinning from his heart. The moon seemed to capture it all in a flash and in that moment, Buffy truly saw him, saw him as both Spike and William and she understand that the two, the light and dark, had been entwined within him for over a century, struggling to strike a balance.

His gaze focused on her lips and Buffy leaned forward.

Then she caught a glimpse of movement over his right shoulder.

"Aah...," she groaned. "Not tonight!"

TBC


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

"What?" William asked.

Buffy gripped his shoulder and shoved him. "Duck!"

William stumbled and fell to his knees under the force of her push. He looked up and gaped in shock.

Buffy faced off against the vampire, trying to take his measure. He was dressed in a wrinkled suit and covered in dirt.

"New to the area are you?" she asked.

"Urgh!" The vampire yelled, lunging for her.

Nimbly, she stepped aside and stuck out her leg to trip him. As the vampire fell to his knees, she spun and landed a swift kick to the middle of his back.

"Ooof!"

She turned around, her gaze searching for a weapon.

"Spike! Stake!"

William didn't hesitate. He knew what she needed and spotted an ancient picket fence encircling a family plot; he broke off a fence post and cracked it over his knee.

"Slayer, catch!"

Buffy turned and caught the stake and she faced the vampire who had risen and was weaving on his feet.

"For a southern vampire, you're not too impressive," she mocked, circling him. "I have to admit, I expected more."

"Prepare to die, Slayer," the vampire snarled.

Buffy stood, cocked her head and eyed him up and down. "Nope -not on the job," she said. Moving as quick as lightning, she spun and delivered a kick to the vampire's throat. He went down like a felled tree and in one smooth move, Buffy rammed the stake through his chest. "I'm retired," she bit out and stepped back quickly as the vampire exploded in a cloud of dust.

She took a deep breath, dusted off her hands, and tilted her head from side to side to release the tension in her neck. She turned around and stopped when she spotted William standing in a pocket of moonlight, staring at her in shock.

"William?"

He reached up and ran his fingers over the crease between his brow and over his forehead. He was panting slightly and sweating in the cool night air. As she walked towards him, she noted he was shaking.

"William?"

His gaze found hers.

"I was one of them?"  
She jogged the last steps to his side, needing to be near him, needing to make him understand. She reached him and gently stroked her hand across his brow.

"Here, yes," she whispered. She dropped her hand and covered his heart. "But, William, here, Spike was always different."

"Oh my God," he shuddered.

She slipped her arms around him, not thinking of his inevitable withdrawal and rejection. She only thought of holding on to him tightly enough to keep him from unraveling.

"Jesus, Buffy, you're for real," he said, pressing his face into her hair and running his hands up and down her back.

She bit back a laugh. "Yeap. Real deal. That's me."

"The vampire was real."

"Yeah, one of the many perks of the job!"

His shock subsided, but he didn't release her.

"Everything, my dreams, my novels, all these things in my head, they're all bloody real, yeah?"

Buffy pulled back slightly and looked up. "Yeah."

He drew her back into his arms, nestling her close. His grip on her tightened and his breathing shifted deeper. He ran his hand down her hair and pressed his lips to her cheek. "You were magnificent," he murmured.

"Thanks," she replied. "You were pretty quick there with the stake."

He grinned, a cocky Spike grin of old. "Glad to be of some service, pet."

She slid her hands up his arms and looped them around his neck. Pressing closer, she felt the evidence of his true reaction to the skirmish. Apparently, she thought to herself, some things really hadn't changed.

"If I kiss you," she said quietly and seriously. "Are you going to push me away?"

He stared down at her, his gaze searching her face.

"I believe you," he said finally. "I may not know it in my head, but I know it my heart that what you've said is true."

She closed her eyes, squeezing back the tears.

"Thank you."

He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers in a deep, hard kiss. Wrapping his arms around her, he lifted her feet off the ground and stumbled back until they hit the low brick wall that circled a plot.

The air exploded from Buffy's lungs in a gasp and William stopped.

"You alright, love?"

"Don't stop," she begged. "Please, don't ever stop."

He grinned and lifting her, set her on the brick wall. He settled between her hips and covered her mouth with his.

"More comfortable?"

She nodded, her lips smiling against his.

William shrugged out of his leather jacket and shirt and tossed it to the ground and went to work on hers. Before long he had her jacket and sweater on the ground. The moment their hot skin pressed together, William closed his eyes and went quiet. He could feel his heart pounding in rhythm with hers and for some inexplicable reason, this tiny little thing – the thump, thump, thump - of their hearts beating in unison brought tears to his eyes.

"William?"

"I'm fine," he whispered, running his lips down her jaw and over her neck. His mouth fastened on the pounding pulse in her neck and he flicked it with his tongue, sending a bolt of desire zinging straight to her womb. "Everything is better than fine."

He ran his hand over her breast cupping it and gently caressing it. With a quick flick of the wrist, he unsnapped her bra and tossed it to the ground. With a groan, he kissed a hot trail down to her nipple and suckled gently.

Buffy cried out and arched her back, pressing into his mouth and his hands, trying to get closer. Her hands cradled his head to her and she bent her lips and kissed the top of his head.

"William," she whispered softly, all her love and all her need for him feeding that one small whisper. One word. A name.

"Oh, Buffy," he responded. Leaving her breast, he captured her lips in a passionate kiss.

She reached for the belt buckle on his pants and tugged on it, loosening his pants and pushing them to his ankles.

"You sure about this?" he asked.

"God, yes," she insisted and William reached down and divested her of her pants. He cupped his hands under her bare bottom, protecting her from the rough, stone wall. Wrapping her legs around him, she guided him to her.

William sank into her heat, gasping. He clutched her to him, his fingers digging into her flesh.

She gasped and tears smarted her eyes at the familiar sensation. It was familiar and yet… William's warmth and the supple feel of his smooth, sweaty skin against hers were new.

He thrust against her, sliding in and out, gritting his teeth against the sensation of her tight heat. He stumbled, losing his footing and they fell hard, back against the stone wall. Buffy held her grip, not letting him go. She was never, ever letting him go again.

"Don't stop," she begged.

He stole her lips in another kiss, their tongues picking up the rhythmic dance of their bodies. His teeth nipped her lip, hard and she gasped, her entire body tightening around him.

"Christ, love," he moaned. "You're going to kill me."

He lifted her higher and shifted the angle of his thrust and pushed harder, swiveling his hips. Buffy's body went completely still. She held herself tight against him and stared down into his eyes. She slipped one hand down his shoulder and covered his lips with her fingers. She didn't want him to say a word.

"I love you," she whispered.

He thrust one last time, and she closed her eyes, burying her face in his shoulder, muffling her scream as her release exploded.

William felt her tightening and release against him and he reached his own climax. Pushing her hair aside, he pressed a hot open mouth kiss on the pulse pounding in her neck. He felt her heart beat surrounding him, under his tongue and teeth and around his shaft. As he came, time splintered and flashed and he saw himself bent over her in the shattered ruins of a house; time splintered and flashed and they lay tangled in red satin sheets; time splintered and flashed and they lay curled up together, fully clothed, asleep.

"Aah…" He collapsed against her, barely standing.

Buffy's legs slid shakily to the ground and she clung to him.

"God," she panted, trying to catch her breath.

"Right, we've done this before," he said, taking a deep breath. "In a cemetery that is."

She chuckled weakly, pressing a kiss to the scars over his heart. "Yeah, a few times."

He tucked her close, loving the feel of her cooling, damp body against his. He glanced around the cemetery. "Let's not make a habit of it. I've got a nice house and a king sized bed now."

"Maybe we'll keep this for special occasions," she replied.

He paused, considering it.

"No."

She leaned against him, laughing. "Okay, then let's go back to your place."

As she stepped away from him, she stumbled and he caught her.

"You going to be able to ride home?" he asked in concern.

Eying him up and down and taking in his semi aroused state, Buffy grinned. "Don't worry. I'll be able to ride home."

***

The journey was rather uncomfortable but Buffy wasn't about to complain. One complaint would have resulted with William hovering in concern and insisting she sleep alone in her own bed.

But the perfect amount of wincing ensured a nice long shared shower and massage to work out all those kinks caused by sex in cemeteries. Sex in a large comfortable king sized bed wasn't a problem at all.

It was late when Buffy's cell phone rang.

She reached out in the dark and grabbed it.

"Hello?"

"Buffy, it's me."

"Hi Willow," she answered coldly. She had not forgotten their last conversation.

"We, uh, I looked into that tattoo that you'd faxed."

Buffy sat up, holding the blankets up to her chest. William stirred in the dark and reached out for her. He rested his head against her hip, pressing a sleepy kiss to her skin and then he curved his arm around her thighs. Buffy ran her hand over his hair, marveling.

"And?"

"Well," Willow began. "The phoenix a pretty common symbol in ancient magic and mysteries. It's associated with resurrection spells because of the legend. You know, phoenix rising from the ashes and all that."

Buffy nodded. "Ok, I can see why William would have that tattooed on his body. The connection between the phoenix and Spike is pretty obvious. But Willow, the problem is that he doesn't remember having it done. Have you figured out the connection between the tattoo and the Shanshu prophecy?"

"See Buffy, this is – this is where things get complicated."

"What do you mean?"

"Giles is on his way to Charleston."

"What?" Buffy asked. "Why?"

"Because – this isn't about the Shanshu prophecy."

Silence.

"Buffy?"

"It isn't Shanshu? What is it?"

"We aren't sure."

TBC


	12. Chapter 12

A warning for those diehards, I realise that in the show Spike was a Manchester United fan, but I've taken some liberties and switched his allegiance to Arsenal, :0) Also - thanks to Mabel for clarifying that it should be "cup o' tea" as opposed to "cuppa"!

Chapter Twelve

"What time is it?"

William sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall, the one right in front of her.

"Right. Now, it's about five minutes past the last time you asked me," he answered.

He watched as she got up and rearranged the flowers on the kitchen island. She had already moved them from the hallway table, to the coffee table, to their current resting place. She flitted from one end of the house to the next, moving and arranging things. It was beginning to grate on his nerves. He tried to focus on the football match, but Buffy and her vase were on the move again.

"Buf-"

A roar came from the TV and he glanced over in hope. Hopes that were dashed the moment he realized that it wasn't his beloved Gunners that had scored. He threw his hands up in the air and in true sportsman fashion, began yelling at the TV.

"Tossers! For the love of God, Almunia, open your eyes! What? What – can you not see the big white ball coming your way? Wake up you sodding git or we'll put Monnone in there. It's not like he could do any worse. Bleeding hell!"

Buffy stopped and stared.

William watched the replay, shaking his head. "Wankers!" He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced up at Buffy.

"What?"

"It's a game," she said faintly.

He looked startled. "Pet, this – this-" he gestured to the TV, his voice rising. "Is more than a 'game'. It's a religion and Almunia is God."

She glanced over at the TV. "Then your God is failing you." She cocked her head and winced. "Again."

William's head shot around and he stared at the TV in disbelief as they showed Arsenals' goal keeper let in another goal. "NO! NO! Argh!" The final whistle blew and he jumped to his feet and lunged for the remote on the coffee table. "No, no, no!" he said, shaking his head as he turned the TV off. He turned and looked at Buffy.

"Am I supposed to apologize? I get the feeling I'm suppose to do something to ease the pain," she asked, fighting a smile.

A grin tugged at the corner of his lips. He swaggered over to her, grabbed her by the hips, and drew her into his arms. "Well, it wouldn't hurt. A kiss would make it all better."

She wound her arms around his neck, reached up, and kissed him soundly.

"Hmmm, see, all better," he murmured.

The doorbell rang and Buffy stiffened.

"He's here."

William shrugged. "So? It's not like he's your dad or something. I'm not sure what all the fuss is about."

She reached out and moved the vase over by one inch. "Giles _**is**_ like a father to me. He's been more a father to me these last ten years than my own dad ever was. I love him and his opinion, well, it matters to me."

"His opinion of me, that is," William said sourly.

He hadn't even met the bloke yet and already he didn't like him.

"Giles, um, he wasn't a fan of Spike," Buffy explained.

"Was anyone? Face it, pet. The git painted his nails black and bleached his hair. If that's not enough to turn you off a bloke, then maybe the whole big bad vampire thing would do it."

"Hey!" she said, trying not to laugh. "Don't mock your former big, bad self."

The doorbell chimed again and Buffy paled. She hurried down the hallway towards the door. "Stay there, I need to prepare him!"

William rolled his eyes and headed to the fridge. After Arsenal's sloppy playing, he deserved a beer.

Buffy threw the front door open and smiled nervously at the man standing on the front porch. "Giles!"

He straightened and smiled. "Hello, Buffy."

She threw her arms around him and hugged him hard. "I've missed you," she said softly.

Giles hugged her back and smiled. "I've missed you, too."

She bent down and grabbed his suitcase and gestured in the house. "Come on in."

Giles paused in the foyer and glanced around. "And Spike? Where is he?"

"He's in the kitchen," she said as she tucked a strand of hair nervously behind her ear. "Giles, I just – you need to know that –Spike's a little different. He's not quite what you'd expect or remember. Exactly."

Giles frowned. "From what I understand he's no longer a vampire, correct?"

Buffy nodded. "That's part of it." Figuring the best thing to do was just show him rather than tell him, she headed down the hall. "Follow me."

William glanced up from the newspaper he'd spread over the kitchen counter as he heard Buffy and her friend walk down the hallway. She stepped aside, letting the older gentleman pass her. Giles looked around the room, his gaze arrested by the beautiful view of the ocean, and then he turned towards the kitchen.

William smiled. "Hello Ripper, a pint or a cup o' tea?"

Giles was stunned. He dropped his briefcase and stared.

"Spike?"

William shook his head with a grimace. "No. A hundred times, no." He ran a finger over his smooth forehead, remembering the vampire from the night before, and he shuddered.

"My goodness," Giles breathed. He reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and taking his glasses off, wiped them clean. Then he put them back on and peered at William. "Remarkable."

"Remarkable! That's me. Remarkably, not a bloody vampire." He turned to Buffy and grinned. "He's terribly observant, isn't he?"

Buffy chuckled and went to him and took his hand. She turned and faced Giles. "See what I mean? Different but the same. If that makes any sense at all."

Giles walked over to them, shaking his head in amazement. "It makes perfect sense Buffy. He is both Spike and William. The both of them melded in this new, human form."

William glanced down at Buffy. "Does he always go on like this?"

She grinned. "Most of the time."

"How did you know to call me Ripper?" Giles asked. "Did Buffy use that term?"

William shook his head. "Nope, just came to me when I saw you standing there. Mind, she did mention your name was Rupert Giles. Ripper just seemed to fit."

"Fascinating," Giles murmured.

"Let me show you your room and then we can talk," Buffy said brightly.

William smiled. "Seriously Ripper, do you want a cup o' tea?"

***

Buffy showed Giles his room and then sat waiting on the bed while he went to the washroom to tidy up. When he returned, she crossed her arms and stared at him.

"So, what do you think?"

He shook his head. "Really, Buffy, I'm not sure what to think. This is all highly unusual."

"Did you get a sense, as soon as you met him, that it was him?"

He nodded. "Of course the resemblance is remarkable. But it's more than that."

"The speech patterns and mannerism," she filled in.

"Precisely," he said. "The edge is gone, but what is left is essentially Spike. Or William. I'm not sure what to make of it."

"Don't call him Spike again," she warned.

Giles looked startled. "Why ever not?"

"He hates it. He's quite pleased with being William and has no memory of being Spike. And what he's seen of vampires and what he's sort of guessed about Spike's life, I don't think he's too keen with the comparison."

Giles tilted his head and looked down at her. "Quite frankly Buffy, I can't blame him. Despite your- er- feelings for Spike, he was a soulless demon for most of his existence." He looked thoughtful. "Does he remember any of it?"

"He dreams and writes about it. But they're separate experiences; he doesn't know them as part of his reality. And it's little things, like his calling you Ripper and yesterday he referred to Dawn as the key. Little bits slip past into this reality, but he's not sure where they come from."

"Incredible," Giles said, shaking his head. "We should probably continue this conversation with him as it does concern him most of all."

Buffy nodded and stood up, as they moved to leave, Giles gently took her arm.

"I haven't had a chance to ask," he said. "But how are you holding up?"

She smiled wistfully at him. "Good. I have him back, Giles. It's all I ever really wanted."

Giles looked uncomfortable and uneasy with her response. "Then, let's hope we can figure this all out."

They rejoined William at the kitchen island where he had set out tea and biscuits. Buffy perched on the bar stool while Giles opened his briefcase and began taking out papers and laying them on the counter.

He watched surreptitiously as William prepared the tea. A bone china cup and saucer, a paper thin wedge of lemon, expertly brewed Earl Gray, and a bowl of fine, white sugar set out. Everything exactly as Giles preferred it.

"Thank you," he said as William handed him the cup.

Giles knew from experience that Buffy, demonstrating abysmal judgment when it came to Earl Gray, took hers with two heaping teaspoons of sugar and milk. He watched as William took care of that without prompting. Finally, William poured himself a cup and looked up, suddenly aware of the silence that had fallen.

"What?"

Giles shook his head. "Nothing." he said.

Buffy sipped her tea and pulled some of the papers towards her. "On the phone Will said that what's going on here has nothing to do with the Shanshu Prophecy."

Giles nodded. "I don't think it does."

"But doesn't the prophecy refer to a vampire with a soul being rewarded with his human life?"

"Precisely," Giles said. He pointed to one of the documents. "I've been going over Wesley's notes. He had translated part of the prophecy and believed that the term Shanshu itself meant 'to live' and 'to die'. He determined that this vampire with a soul would fulfill his destiny and his humanity would be his reward."

William leaned forward. "Sounds pretty straight forward, mate. Spike had a soul, he saved the world during that thing in Sunnydale and apparently, here he is or rather, here I am, all human like."

"Seems so, doesn't it?" said Giles. "_**If**_ Spike had been the vampire in question, this would all have happened after Sunnydale. Instead, he showed up in Los Angeles as a ghost." He frowned. "Certainly, the prophecy is vague. But, it is clear on one more thing."

Buffy leaned forward, holding her breath.

"The vampire will be restored to his mortal life." Giles shook his head. "Spike was not restored to _his_ mortal life, he was given _another_ mortal life."

Buffy frowned. "I - I must be missing something here. There must be some subtlety that I'm not getting."

"You see, Buffy," Giles tried to explain. "Prophecies are tricky. But if Spike had fulfilled his destiny and had his mortality given back to him, it would have happened right after the Sunnydale apocalypse and, well, he would still be Spike. He'd probably be living in Los Angeles, he'd have his soul, his heart would beat, and he'd be as mortal as the rest of us. But he would still be Spike, he'd still have his memories."

Buffy stared at him. "That's – that's-"

"A complete load of shite," William said. "What are you basing this on?"

Giles sat back, took his glasses off and wiped them. "The original document has been lost, I'm afraid. Oh, for certain we have some of Wesley's notes, but really, I'm merely going by what we've found in what's left of the Council documents, and well, what Angel knows."

Buffy stiffened at the mention of Angel's name and William smirked. "Right then, so you're basing your theory on some bits and pieces of paper flying about and some Nancy boy vampire with a soul who wants to be a real boy again?" He glanced over at Buffy and noted the look of utter shock on her face. "What? The poofter's name is _Angel_ for fucks sakes. What am I supposed to think?"

She shook her head. "No-nothing. Just keep going," she said, giving Giles a pointed look.

"You're going to need something more than that to figure this out," William finished and sipped his tea.

Giles nodded in agreement. "Precisely. We can start with the prophecy, but it has its limitations. It's a prophecy, they are written in ancient languages and usually by the time we get them, we're missing half the document. It's an imprecise study. It is not a science."

"Blah, blah, blah," William said, tossing back the last of his tea. "Right then, here's a nice, precise question for the both of you." He stood up and leaned on the counter and stared them down. "Who cares? Who gives a bloody damn?"

"What?" Buffy asked faintly.

He tossed his arms open. "Really, what does it matter? Who cares if it's the Shanshu or bugaboo prophecy? I have a great life. As a matter of fact, ask anyone, and I have a perfect life. Why would I need to know anything about this prophecy? What would I do with that information?"

"What indeed," Giles murmured.

Buffy stared at him, her eyes wide and filled with tears. Only three days ago, she would have had an answer for him. It would have been a simple, straight forward answer. Understand the prophecy, figure out a way to reverse it, get Spike back.

Things were no longer that straight forward and simple.

William looked at her and noted the tears.

"Buffy?" he asked in concern, he hurried around the kitchen island to her side and cupped her face in his hand, tilted it up to him. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head. "I just want to understand," she whispered. "I just want you to know."

"Know what, love?"

"Me," she replied. "I just want you to know me."

"But I am getting to know you," he said, bewildered.

She pulled away from him, stood up and walked over to the window. She couldn't be near him. The temptation to throw herself in his arms and bury her head in the sand was too great.

"I want you to know who I was before - who we were before," she continued. "So that – that I could fix things."

"Fix things?" He glanced over at Giles, as if looking for answers. But Giles simply bowed his head and avoided him.

"I suppose it'd be easier this way," she said, turning from the view of the endless sea and looking instead at him. "You don't remember anything, so there's nothing I need to apologize for, fix, or make up to you. But I just don't do easy well."

William went to her and held her shoulders. He rubbed them gently and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Maybe it's time to give easy a try."

She stared at him, her green eyes glittering with tears. "I can't live with easy. Easy scares me. Easy equates happy and that gets snatched away."

"Life doesn't always have to be one apocalypse after another," he insisted.

She wiped a tear away and laughed roughly. "In the Buffyverse it always is."

He sighed and drew her into his arms. "You're daft, you know that? Here I'm offering you an easy way out and you want to make things difficult for us. What do you need, Buffy?"

She muffled something against his chest.

"What?"

She looked up at him, her face flushed with embarrassment. "Redemption."

Giles coughed on his last sip of tea and Buffy glared at him.

William suspected that what she wanted wasn't necessarily what they both needed, and he had his doubts that he could really give her what she needed, but he felt an inexplicable urge to try. "Alright, pet. You want to make things right, then we'll do what we have to, to make things right." He turned to Giles. "So, if it's not Shanshu then what is it?"

Giles' face lit up as he finally had both of them on the same page, his page. He opened a folder and carried it over to them.

"I think, but I'm not one hundred percent certain, that it's a prophecy dealing with hermetic magic and a 19th century cult based in England," he said.

Buffy heard a slight rumbling. She glanced over at William. "What's that?"

He frowned. "Garage door opening." He glanced thoughtfully at the clock. "Buffy, what day is it?"

"Tuesday, why?"

"Bleeding hell," he muttered. "She's going to kill me."

"Who's going to kill you?" Buffy asked, immediately going on the defensive.

"Jackie," he replied. "Jackie is going to kill me."

Buffy snorted. "I tried to kill you for years and never managed it. She doesn't stand a chance."

He shook his head, looking uncertain. "Well, pet, she's going to give it a damn good try." He turned and smiled at Giles. "Prepare yourself, Ripper, you're about to meet your match. Jackie reminds me a lot of you, now that I think of it. All stiff and proper and the like." He started towards the front of the house and glanced back. "Mind you, younger and better looking."

TBC


	13. Chapter 13

Note: The Order of the Golden Dawn did exist, and they were in to some of the stuff mentioned here. As mentioned, Yeats and Bram Stoker were members.

Thanks to my beta Mabel for catching me in the spots where I come across as too "lectury". :0)

NOTE: Lydia's character is mentioned in two episodes, one in S5 and one in S7. Her last name is not mentioned in either ep, nor is it mentioned on the actresses website. If anyone knows where I can confirm a last name, please send me a note with the URL. For now, I'm sticking with Anderson. :0)

And as always, I don't own the Buffy characters and am making no money off of this.

Chapter Thirteen

William came to a halt as the door connecting the garage to the house flew open.

"Jackie, I can explain!" he said, holding up his hands in defense.

She stared at him. "Explain? You're going to explain why you're not in New York meeting with your agent? You're going to explain why Elliot Reynolds was sitting at his usual table at the Four Seasons, waiting for you? William, Reynolds waits for no one!"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry for me spending the last forty-five minutes on the phone calling the airline and your hotel and your cell phone looking for you? Sorry for me being worried half out of my mind that something terrible had happened to you?"

He was taken aback by her vehemence. "I – listen, I'm sorry."

She took a deep breath and stared at him. "What's going on? This isn't like you. Since Friday and that incident at Beauvais, you haven't been yourself."

He laughed roughly. "You don't know the half of it, love."

An odd look flitted across her face. "What does that mean?"

"Well, some strange things have happened since Friday," he said. He looked at her closely, wondering how much to tell her; wondering how much she could handle. Finally, he made a decision. "Follow me." He turned and led her into the house.

***

"Buffy, Wesley was convinced that the Shanshu was only meant for Angel and I tend to agree with him. What is going on with William is completely different," Giles said. He looked at his limited notes in frustration. "If only I had all the resources of the Council at hand. There was documentation on Spike's life; the Council had been following him closely. It would be a tremendous help if we had that."

"Well, we don't," Buffy said as she cleared away the remnants of their tea. "So what do we do now?"

"Willow gave me a couple of spells that we could try to stir his memories," Giles said. "If I could piece together some specifics around his earlier days as William the Bloody, I might be able to make some stronger connection with the hermetics."

They both looked up as the yelling escalated in the hallway.

"This, Jackie," Giles asked. "You've met her before?"

Buffy shuddered. "Once, very briefly. Cold and stuffy."

The yelling stopped and they heard footsteps walking towards them.

"Brace yourself," Buffy muttered. She turned and forced a smile as William came back into the family room with Jackie in tow.

Jackie caught sight of them and paled.

Expecting some sort of cold, caustic greeting, Buffy was taken aback at the woman's reaction.

Even more shocking, was Giles'.

"Lydia?" He asked, coming around the counter from the kitchen and into the family room. "Lydia Anderson?"  
William and Buffy spared one quick, confused glance for each other and then looked over at the budding drama in front of them.

"Rupert?" the woman asked tremulously.

"What are you doing here?" Giles asked. He smiled and hurried to her side. He drew her into his arms for an embrace. "My God, I thought you'd died in the explosion in London! This, this is magnificent!" He pulled back and looked her over, shaking his head. "What happened? How did you survive?"

Jackie – or Lydia rather – pushed her hair back and rubbed her hands down her skirt. "I –I'd forgotten some papers and a book at my flat, so I'd left to go and get them. When I got back, the building had gone up in flames."

Giles pulled her back into his arms for another hug. "My goodness! Lydia, that must have been shocking."

She nodded, clinging to him. "It was awful, Rupert. There was nothing left."

"Well, you weren't the only survivor," Giles said in an attempt to comfort her. "A handful of Watchers escaped the Bringers."

"Who?"

"Stephan was in Lourdes at the time and managed to hide for months, Celeste was in Toronto, and Manuel and Carmen were in Recife. And now, you."

"Where are the-"

"Uh – hello – still standing here," William interjected. "Sorry to break up the lovely little return of the prodigal whatever – but can someone please tell me what the bloody hell is going on here?"

Giles turned to them, a puzzled look on his face. "I'm sorry, I just assumed you knew who she was. She appeared to be an acquaintance of yours."

"Well, Ripper, you assumed incorrectly," William said. "As apparently, did I." He turned to 'Jackie'. "Who the hell are you, really?"

Buffy stepped in front of him in a defensive gesture and William looked down at her in bewilderment. He gently pushed her aside.

"Appreciate the gesture and all, pet. But I can defend myself against the likes of these two."

"My real name is Lydia Anderson. I was born in Melbourne and my parents moved to Oxford when I was fifteen. My father was an anthropology professor there and my mother worked in ancient languages. As you can imagine, they traveled in some interesting circles." She glanced over at Giles and he nodded for her to continue. "When I turned twenty, I was approached by members of the Watcher's Council. And from then on, I worked and studied with them."

William frowned. "But how did you end up here as my assistant? And what's with the name change?"

"After the destruction of the Council, I went into hiding. I returned to Melbourne, took on my grandmother's name, changed my hair, and tried to continue my work."

"Your work?" he asked. "Your work? Your work was managing my work?" He looked over at Buffy and Giles. He didn't know about them, but he was completely baffled. He definitely did not like the smile on the old guy's face. That did not bode well.

"Yes!" Giles said looking from Lydia to William. "This is perfect! Far more perfect than I could have asked for."

"Okay," Buffy said. "Now I'm getting nervous. I haven't seen him this excited since he ate a truck load of band candy and hit on my mom." She shuddered at the memory and glanced at William. "Do something, quick."

He shrugged. "I haven't a clue what they're talking about, love."

"Lydia's work was your work, in a manner of speaking," Giles explained. He squeezed Lydia's shoulder proudly. "She is an expert on Spike's life."

Buffy snorted. "What? There was an expert on his life? He wasn't even an expert on his own life!"

"Precisely, which is why a member of the Watcher's Council was appointed to study him and follow him. He was an anomaly and he was unpredictable. Lydia was his biographer, she wrote her thesis on him." Giles said happily. "Buffy, I'm surprise you didn't recognize her. She came to Sunnydale. You met her briefly at the Magic Box."

Buffy stared at him. "You're kidding me right? I'm supposed to remember someone I met once, years ago?"

William shook his head. "This git had his own biographer? What was it with this bloke?" He glanced at the women. "What was it with the two of you women? Fang bangers," he muttered beneath his breath.

"I was not a fang banger," Lydia bit out defensively. "I was a professional. A researcher and his biographer." She glanced over at Buffy in disdain. "I kept a professional distance. There are lines that should never be crossed."

"I'll cross some lines," Buffy muttered.

Giles turned to Lydia , tossing his folder with all his precious notes onto the coffee table. "Tell me, Lydia, it's not the Shanshu prophecy is it? Tell me I'm right."

She looked over at William shook her head. "No, it's not."

"A hermetic cult?"

She nodded and Giles grinned. "Yes! I knew it!"

Buffy looked nervous. "Hermeta whatsa? That just doesn't sound good."

Lydia looked down at her, eyebrows raised and then shook her head. "I just don't get it," she murmured, and then she turned to Giles. "Yes, Rupert. I noticed the connection between Spike and the hermetics right from the beginning. It was around the same time that he was sired that a small cult in England took hold, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn."

"Dawn? Does this have something to do with Dawn?" Buffy asked in concern.

Lydia sniffed and rolled her eyes. "No, it has nothing to do with Dawn and, interestingly enough, it has nothing to do with you. Imagine that!"

Buffy crossed her arms and glared at her.

William bit his lip and covered his mouth with his hand to hide the smile that threatened.

"Of course," Giles murmured. "The Golden Dawn. This is very interesting." He turned to Buffy and William. "They were a group of gentlemen; some of them well known actually, Yeats and Bram Stoker were members. The order was similar to a Freemasons' group with a hierarchical system. They believed that studying hermetic principles would help them achieve understanding."

Lydia took over. "There were three orders within the organization. The first order were men and women who studied the four classical elements as well as things such as tarot, astrology, and geomancy. The second order looked at scrying, astral travel, and alchemy. The third order, the 'Secret Chiefs', were incarnate spirits who guided and aided the members of the Golden Dawn."

William abruptly sat down. "So what you're saying is that a bunch of blokes went around reading tarot cards and tossing rocks about looking for answers that they believed were coming from spirits that helped them?"

Lydia looked displeased at his flippant summary, but nodded. "At a very rudimentary level, yes."

William rested his head in his hands for a moment, breathing deeply. Then he looked up. "I know I write gothic novels and I've done my research on demons and I know a whole lot about orders. I wrote the bloody book! But really – expecting me to believe that all this," his gestured encompassed Buffy, Giles and Lydia, "is real and not just my imagination, well, I – I'm at a loss."

Buffy sat down next to him. "Remember the other night; you know the vampires are real," she said softly.

"Yeah, I'm still trying to wrap my head around that, and now this?"

Buffy looked up at Lydia and glared. "You still haven't explained what this has to do with Spike and with William."

"I was getting to that," Lydia replied coolly. "The Golden Dawn's main focus was on alchemy: the destruction and creation of new forms of matter, both physical and spiritual."

"The phoenix," Giles exclaimed. He pointed to William's tattoo. "The phoenix was a hermetic symbol of alchemy and a universal symbol of mystical rebirth and immortality. Early initiates to the hermetic path in ancient Greek and Roman times were referred to as phoenixes."

Lydia looked down at William. "I became convinced, quite early on, that Spike was the Golden Dawn's own alchemy project."

William gaped at her. "Project? Like an experiment?"

She nodded. "Yes, you see William Pratt traveled in some of the same circles as members of the Golden Dawn. I hypothesized that members of the Golden Dawn, knowing William had been made into a vampire, followed his progress and his life with the expectation that he would fulfill their beliefs."

A look of dawning awareness showed on Giles' face. "My God, how did I not consider this? Of course, I was so caught up in Shanshu, it never even occurred to me to look elsewhere."

Lydia frowned. "The Shanshu prophecy is Angel's destiny, not Spike's. If my notes and most of my final thesis hadn't been destroyed in the bombing, you'd know all this." She took a deep breath and continued. "Spike's destiny was foretold in the hermetic writings. It's not a prophecy so much as a belief. The hermetics believed that under the right circumstances, the right human could be transformed through the alchemic process: nigredo, albedo, and citrinitas rebedo. I had predicted that Spike would go through this process."

William looked at Buffy and shook his head. "And I thought I had an imagination. You realize that I couldn't have come up with this even if I'd tried."

She sighed and sat down next to him and took his hand. "I've sort of picked up over the years that there will always be something more unbelievable around the corner. Just when I think I've seen and heard it all…"

Giles was nodding and writing frantically. "Lydia , it's brilliant." He held up a piece of paper with a series of three symbols on it. "Spike went through stage one, nigredo when he became a vampire – it was the putrefaction and the dissolution of his blood. Then, when he died in the fire at Sunnydale, he went through albedo, whitening, which is why he returned as a ghost. And finally," his voice rose in excitement as he pointed to the last symbol, "after he was staked in Los Angeles, he went through citrinitas rebedo, enlightenment and the unification of man with God. He became, literally, the phoenix who rose from the ashes."

Lydia nodded. "Exactly, if the writings of the Golden Order are to be believed then Spike was transformed into what they saw as their highest order of 'Secret Chiefs'."

William, his face pale, tried to make a joke. "See, Buffy, I'm a God," he said weakly.

Buffy was ashen too. She glanced over at William, and then back to Lydia and Giles. "But, he's not a God, he's not even immortal, he lost that in the transformation."

Lydia nodded. "The Golden Order was not so much obsessed with immortality as they were with transmutation. In their eyes, Spike has been transformed. He went from life, to death, and back to another, completely different life. The order, if they were still around, would be extremely pleased. He has lived for well over a hundred years, as far as they are concerned, he's found a certain immortality without giving up his humanity."

"Why me?" William asked softly. He stared down at his hands, not looking up. "I don't understand why this is happening to me. Apparently, the world is full of vampires, so why did this happen to me?"

Lydia's face, looking down at William, softened with sympathy.

"I truly believe that Spike was special. I always have," she murmured. "As a human, his soul was bright and his humanity unquestionable. When he became a vampire, he managed to do something that no other vampire had ever done, he kept a part of his soul and his humanity. A tiny spark of it remained." She looked over at Buffy. "He was able to love deeply."

Giles shook his head. "But the atrocities he committed!"

Lydia nodded. "He was still a demon, a killer. He was capable of committing horror as well as feeling the deepest love. He was the perfect combination of black and white."

"Nigredo and albedo," Giles said.

They both looked over at William and Buffy.

Buffy couldn't hold back anymore. "So the transformation is final? There's no going back?"

Lydia shook her head. "Not that I know of. The only thing I have observed is that some of his memories have slipped through the transmutation. The soul, with all its experiences deeply embedded in it, is very strong and quite resilient."

William glanced over at Buffy. "But for all intents and purposes, Spike is dead." William murmured.

"Yes," Lydia said, her tone final. "He is gone."

Buffy stood up and not looking at either of them, she left the room.

William got to his feet and eyed Lydia. "You've lied to me all this time."

She nodded. "I'm sorry."

"Why did you do it?"

Her eyes gleamed with tears. She had lost all her customary haughtiness. "This was my life's work. I had nothing else."

"How did you find me?"

"The Internet," she explained. "After the incident in Los Angeles, I knew what to expect and I kept looking. Then there was small picture and article of a missing man who had been returned to his family. There was a photo and I recognized you."

"And my family?" he asked angrily. "How are they involved in this?"

"You are a genetic match to them," she said. "As far as they are concerned, you are and have always been their son. In reality, you 'became' their son in 2004. They believe that you had gone missing for several months and were found beaten and unconscious in an alley in London."

William thought back to that conversation with his mum. "Were you ever in contact with them?"

Lydia sighed. "Yes, I inferred that certain people had been responsible for your condition and that should they ever show up asking questions, she was to deny any knowledge of them and contact me."

William rubbed the back of his neck. "And who are these 'certain people'."

Lydia glanced apologetically at Giles. "Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, Rupert Giles and a man going simply by the name Angel."

"You recognized Buffy the other night," he stated. "The whole bit about looking for her wallet was a farce."

Lydia nodded. "That's – that's why I tried to get you to New York. I called your agent and rescheduled your meeting. Tuesday was the earliest. I had to hope that was enough. It was integral that you not come into contact with her again."

"Why?" he asked incredulously.

She gestured to the room. "Because of this! I couldn't allow this to happen. It ruined everything."

"Ruined everything? Everything?" He leaned forward, glaring at her. "Ruined what? Your little experiment?"

"William-"

He held up his hand. "Let me ask you one more question."

She bowed her head.

"Did you ever, EVER, consider telling me all this?"

She looked up at him, entreating him. "I did."

"Then why the hell did you not say something?"

Giles stepped up and placed his hand on Lydia's shoulder. "Because she was taught not too," he said. "It is what Watchers do. We watch and we observe and we record. We do not interfere."

"Bollocks," William yelled. "I'm not some specimen to study. I'm not some, some new species or experiment to observe. I am a human being!" He turned on his heels and stormed from the house.

TBC


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Buffy figured that she couldn't get lost walking on the beach, no matter how distraught and distracted she was. She left William's house and headed north along the shore until she got to a large piece of driftwood coughed up several storms ago. She sat on it and stared out at the ocean. She let its rhythms soothe her until her pounding heart picked up on the gentle coming and going of the waves. Starlight sparkled on each crest and the sea looked like a spangled velvet blanket.

Then she ducked her head, pressed her fists against her mouth, and she howled.

She howled for all the things that she'd said to Spike the many times they were together. She howled for every kick, every punch, and every slap. She wept for every verbal jab and every form of abuse she'd rained down on him. And finally, she wept for the last time she'd seen him, for waiting so long to realize her feelings, to trust them, for waiting till the end to tell him how she really felt.

He was gone and he was never coming back.

And she was going to have to learn to live with her biggest regret.

There would be no chance for redemption.

She sniffled and wiped her tears. Looking up at the stars, she closed her eyes and made a wish. It was childish, and Buffy had long ago said goodbye to childish things, but she did it anyway.

"Buffy?"

Stiffening in surprise, she spun around and peered into the shadows of the sand dunes.

"Angel?"

He stepped from the dunes and walked across the sand towards her. In the moonlight he looked like something from a romance novel. Tall, dark and dashing in a long black coat. His chiseled features wore their customary brooding frown. And as he approached her, he seemed to do so hesitantly.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked.

"I came with Giles. I had to wait at the airport until the sun went down," he explained.

"Giles didn't mention it," she bit out.

"I asked him not to."

She turned away from him and crossed her arms. Staring out at the sea, she asked, "Why are you here?"

"How can I not be here? If there's a chance that he's alive…"

Buffy shook her head, wiping away a tear. "He's not alive."

"But – "

She turned and lashed out. "He's not ALIVE! Whoever it is in that house may look like Spike and may at times talk like Spike. BUT IT IS NOT SPIKE!"

Angel stepped forward and grabbed her by the arms and she fought him. She pulled and tugged, trying to get away from him.

"Let me go!" she yelled, sobbing and pounding his chest. "Let me go! I don't want you here!"

He ignored her screams and her struggle and he drew her to him, wrapping her in his arms.

"Why wasn't it you?" she sobbed against his chest. "Why wasn't it you?"

Angel bowed his head, pressing his cheek against her hair. "I don't know Buffy. I don't know why he died that day and I didn't."

"I want him back," she sobbed. "I need him to know that I loved him."

Angel rubbed her back soothingly. "I know, I know you do."

"I hate you," she whispered tearfully.

He laughed roughly. "I know. There are days, more than I can count, where I hate myself."

"What am I going to do?" She looked up at him, her eyes swollen from her tears, her hair a mess, looking about twelve years old. "I had banked everything on this last chance. I'd come here and find him and apologize and make it all up to him and he would know that he was forgiven and loved and we would live happily ever after. It would be like a fairytale."

Angel brushed her hair back and tucked it behind her ears. With his thumbs, he gently wiped her tears away. "Would you agree that I know a thing or two about redemption?"

She nodded, biting her bottom lip to stop its trembling.

"Living a life built on the idea of trying to make amends for the past might work in the movies and books but Buffy, it's a futile existence," he murmured. "You end up spending so much time looking back, that you lose out on the present and any possibility of a future, and you hurt the ones who love you. It's not a life, it becomes a sentence."

He sighed and looked up at the stars. "I've made a million mistakes and there are not enough stars in the sky for me to wish them all away. I've spent over a century trying to do good to make up for all the bad I've done, when what I should have simply done, was good for goods' sake."

"Do you regret it?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I don't regret any of the good I've done, how could I? But I'm starting to realize that the only way I'm ever going to achieve any sort of atonement or redemption is not with one little battle after another, but by dying."

"Angel," she said.

He frowned. "I'm not ready for that yet. And until that time comes, I've got to just keep going." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You've only got one life, Buffy. You've got to do more than just keep going. You have to live it. You have to let the past go, bury those regrets, and move on to some sort of happiness."

"Well, well, well. Isn't this a touching scene," a sarcastic voice spoke.

Buffy stepped from Angel's arms and turned to William.

He eyed the vampire from top to bottom. "I'm guessing by all the dark broodiness that you're Angel, the big, sad, vampire."

"William," Angel whispered. He stared at William as if he'd seen a ghost.

"Are you here to comfort Buffy in her great loss?" William lashed out. "Planning on trying again?"

"William!" Buffy said angrily.

He looked over at her. "What? I came out looking for you, to see if you're alright, if you need anything. If you needed m-" He shook his head in disbelief. He gestured to the two of them. "And I find you all cozied up with this ponce."

"He was simply trying to do the same thing," she explained.

William exhaled, seeming to deflate; his features looked drawn and exhausted. Buffy couldn't remember having seen Spike looking exhausted and she realized just what a human condition it was. And in that moment, she understood the true depth of the situation and saw it in a new light. Spike, as strong and invincible as he'd been, was gone. How much more fragile was this human flesh standing before her.

"Guess he has more a right to comfort you than I do," William said. He turned to walk away.

"Wait!" Angel said. William stopped and turned back.

Angel walked over to him. His gaze searched William's face and he shook his head in amazement. "I can only imagine how incredible this must all seem to you," he said.

William had lost all his cockiness. "Yeah, you could say that."

"And I know that, even imagining for one second that you were a vampire, must be a disturbing and difficult thing."

William stared at him, listening and wondering where this was headed.

"But I want you to know that there were times when we were friends," Angel said softly. "We fought together, side by side, and we saved lives and we did good things. Spike's life was not all about chaos and destruction. It wasn't all about blood and killing. Spike was a good friend and there were people who cared about him. Fred, Gunn, Lorne, Wes, and me. It wasn't perfect, but it's not a legacy to be ashamed of either."

"Thank you," William responded.

Angel held out his hand. William gazed down at it for a moment, then reached out and took it. Angel leaned forward and lowered his voice.

"You have an opportunity here that neither, Spike nor I, ever had. Don't blow it," he murmured.

Angel straightened up and looked over at Buffy. "I'll be at the Holiday Inn by the airport if you need me. Let Giles know that our flights have been scheduled for two in the morning on Friday."

She nodded.

In a blink of an eye, he was gone.

William shook his head and glanced around. "So it's true, he can just go 'poof' and he's gone. Just like that?"

She nodded, sitting back on the driftwood. "Vampires are pretty quick."

"Did you love him?" he asked suddenly.

She exhaled deeply. "I was sixteen. I loved him as much as a sixteen year old could love a man."

William looked thoughtfully back at the last place he'd seen the vampire. She might be able to use her age as a means of belittling her feelings for Angel, but Angel had been a man of years and experience. He suspected that theirs had been a great love, the kind of love that books are written about.

"What happened?"

She looked down at her feet and absently drew hearts in the sand. "Angel was cursed with his soul. And if he ever experienced a moment of pure happiness, then he would lose that soul and return to his evil, soulless state. Which, not exaggerating, made Freddy Kruger look harmless."

William winced. "And let me guess, he experienced that moment of pure happiness with you?"

She nodded. "Yeap. Goodnight Angel. Good morning Angelus."

"Pretty difficult to have a relationship under those circumstances," he replied. Christ, he thought to himself, how the hell could he compete with that kind of romantic, tortured passion? To add more fuel to the fire, he asked the inevitable question. "And Spike?"

Buffy wrapped her arms around herself and glanced over at him. She really looked at him. In the moonlight, the light by which she'd often looked at Spike, she truly saw the differences.

William's skin had a healthy, almost ruddy tint to it and his eyes were dark blue in the moonlight. His hair, a soft honey blond curled a little and there were fine lines around his eyes. Laugh lines. Lines of experience.

She shook her head. "I couldn't tell you the moment it happened. One day he was the pain in my ass, and the next day I wanted him with a fierceness that surprised me. I was going through a very dark phase and there was something about his own demons that drew me to him."

William's eyebrows arched in surprise. "That doesn't sound like love, sounds more like lust."

She nodded. "In the beginning, for me, it was about lust. And in the end, he was my only friend."

He was surprised. He'd expected another great tale of love's, labors', lost and he got a sense that it was more about labor than love. "Did you love him?" he finally asked, needing to get to the bottom of it.

"It's hard to explain," she began. "I needed him and I couldn't imagine my life without him because he'd simply been there for so long. And no matter what I did or said, he stuck by me."

"Sounds like he loved you," William said.

She nodded. "He did, but I never understood. Part of it was that I couldn't understand how anyone could love me. And, I didn't understand how someone without a soul could love anyone."

"Lydia seems to think that there was something there." William said.

"Yeah, there was always something different about him. And then he went and got his soul and I had no excuses anymore, no defenses." She stood up and rubbed her arms against the chilly, night air. "Before he got his soul, my relationship with him was strictly physical. After he got the soul, our relationship became more one of the heart and, well, of the soul."

William's heart sank. She hadn't answered his question outright. She hadn't come out and said that she'd loved Spike with the same intensity that she'd loved Angel. She had done something worse. She'd painted a picture of a relationship devoid of romantic fantasy but built on plain old complicated reality. In her very short life, Buffy had already managed to experience both great passion and great love. How could a woman who had loved and been loved by two supernatural creatures ever settle for someone like him? Especially now that there was nothing to tie them together, no past, no shared memories.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so bleeding sorry."

She looked over at him in surprise. "For what? You haven't done anything."

He walked the last few feet to her and gently caressed her cheek. "I'm sorry for not being him."

Tears filled her eyes and fell down her cheeks.

"Thank you," she whispered.

He drew her to him and tucked her against his chest. With their arms wrapped tightly around each other, they looked out at the sea.

TBC


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Three months later…

Buffy stared down at the letter from Dahlia.

_"My dearest Buffy, _

_I hope this letter finds you well. With the holidays coming up, I have been thinking so much about you and our conversations. We have a bond, you and I, that is so very, very special. I am not sure what your plans are for Thanksgiving, if you are going west to spend it with family and friends. If you are, then I wish you well. If you are not, then it would be my pleasure to have you here at Beauvais Hall for the weekend. Annabelle will make up your room and I promise you a feast and those mimosas you loved so much the last time. _

_All my love, Dahlia."_

Buffy sighed. She wrapped the shawl around her shoulders tighter and stared out at the water. Over the last months she'd found herself doing that a lot. Sitting on the porch with her laptop and text books, doing her homework, she would stop suddenly and look up out at the water wondering if, in that moment, William was doing the same. The same ocean lapped at his shores and at hers, and she often wondered if she dropped a branch, a shell, or a piece of paper, if they would be picked up by the current and swiftly delivered to him. She imagined, at times, that during his morning jogs, he'd stop and pick up a piece of ocean debris, look north, and think of her.

Turning, she walked back into the house and checked the clock. It was an okay time to call. She grabbed the cordless phone and quickly dialed the number.

"Angel Investigations!"  
"Hi, Nina. Is Angel around?"

"Sure, Buffy, just a sec. How is school?"

"Good, really good."

"Great to hear. I'll go and get him."

Buffy heard the phone drop and as she waited, she wandered back out onto the porch.

"Hey Buffy, how are you?"

She smiled, hearing his voice. "Good and you?"

"Couldn't be better. Helping the helpless is all it's cracked up to be!" She could hear the faint tinge of irony in his tone. "School's good?"

"School's good. I start my co-op in the New Year, so I'm excited about that. I'll be working at a youth detention centre."

Angel chuckled. "Who would have thought living with all those slayers would prepare you for something more, eh?"

She laughed. "Apparently it did."

"So, what's up?" he asked. Even though their relationship had settled into something comfortable for the both of them since that conversation on the beach, they didn't call each other just to exchange inanities.

"I got an invitation from Dahlia to go and spend Thanksgiving with her at the plantation," Buffy said softly.

"And? What's the problem with that? Southern hospitality is all it's cracked up to be and it would be better than spending it alone."

"I'm scared," she murmured.

"Aah, Buffy, come on. The Slayer I know is never scared."

She closed her eyes. "I'm not the Slayer anymore. I'm just – just Buffy and I'm terrified of going to Dahlia's."

"Do you know if he's going to be there?"

"Not for certain, but I figure he will be. They're friends."

"Have you talked to him at all since you left Charleston?"

"Nope," she whispered. Her eyes burned with tears and she squeezed them shut, angrily fighting them back. No more tears. No more crying. She'd bawled the entire bus ride back to Wilmington and then cried for days afterwards. Then, one morning she'd woken, showered, and decided that she'd wept enough. So she'd ironed her clothes, cleaned the house, and started getting ready for college.

"Buffy, I think that you're making a mistake," said Angel suddenly.

Her eyes snapped open and she glared at nothing in particular. "What?"

"I think you're making a mistake with William."

"How so? If he's not Spike, then what is there?"

Angel sighed. "He seems to be a pretty good guy in his own right. A talented, successful man with a future. I'm assuming that you find him attractive, although he looks so much like Spike I don't know how you could." She could hear the smile in his voice, "but that aside, Buffy, he's a good guy. He's smart and successful and wealthy and there is an attraction and a bond between the two of you."

She shook her head. "That bond was nothing – it was based on my fantasies and my wishes and nothing else."

"And the attraction? I didn't imagine that – there was fire between the two of you."

"I thought – well, he just looked so much like Spike! How could I not be attracted to him? I thought it was him! It was Spike I was attracted to, not William."

"How do you know that? You ran away before it could be something more!" Angel argued.

"Urgh," Buffy cried out, pressing her fingers into her eyes. "This is crazy!"

"What are you scared of?" he asked harshly. "Just what the hell are you so scared of? Being happy?"

She stood stock still and stared up at the sky. That was it, wasn't it?

"Every time I've ever been happy with someone, they go away," she whispered. "Dad went away, you did, Mom, Riley, Spike – every one just disappears. God, Spike was immortal and he still died. William isn't like you or Spike, he's not going to live forever."

Angel laughed roughly. "That's a good thing for you, Buffy. Believe me."

"He could die," she said softly. "What happens in I fall in love with him and he dies? What would I do then?"

"I used to worry about that all the time, when I was with you," he replied. "It used to keep me up, I would watch you fight and I would worry about the one time you'd slip and get killed."

She shook her head and pressed the phone to her ear. "How did you do it?"

"I ran away, didn't I? Don't use me as your yard stick, Buffy. I couldn't handle it. But you're so much stronger than I am."

"What would you do differently if you had the chance, if circumstances had been different?" she asked.

Angel sighed, closed his eyes, and bowed his head. "I would stay. I would stay and I would fight and protect you with my life. I would love you for every day and every moment that we had – whether that was one year or fifty."

Buffy smiled sadly, wishing he were there, wishing that she could comfort him.

"Thank you," she said.

"So, what are you going to do? You going to keep running or are you going to stay?"

She made up her mind in that instant. "I'm going to stay."

***

William got out of the car, balancing the cake box and the bottle of bourbon. He set the box on the top of the car and grabbed his overnight bag from the back seat.

"Let me help you with that, Mr. Bennett."

William glanced up and smiled at Isaiah. "Thanks! How are you?" he asked as they walked up the path to the back of the house.

"Good, Miss Dahlia has us all busy getting ready for this weekend. That woman, I swear, she's got more energy and ideas than a teenager!" The older man shook his head in disbelief.

William grinned. "That's why I brought us some bourbon, my friend. I thought we'd sneak off and steal us a nip or two."

Isaiah smiled as he opened the door and held it for William. "That sounds great, you just tell me when."

"When what?"

William turned and smiled at Dahlia as she sailed into the room. Dressed in a lovely, white and peach muslin dress that floated like air to the floor, she looked like something from an old movie poster. William hugged her close and pressed a kiss to her cheek. He stood back and looked her up and down.

"You did something to your hair," he said.

She ran a hand over her shorter locks self consciously. The long hair that she'd worn in a French twist had been replaced by a 1920s style bob. She went from southern belle to southern chic.

"It was time for a change," she said with a small smile.

"It looks bloody marvelous," he said with a charming grin.

She waved his compliments away and glanced between him and Isaiah. "Do not think you can distract me from what I overheard. What are you boys up to now? I do not want any shenanigans going on this weekend."

William glanced over at his partner in arms with a look of pure innocence. "I promise, no shenanigans." It was Jack Daniels green label bourbon after all, there were no shenanigans written anywhere on the label, so technically he wasn't lying to her.

And she knew it; from the sparkle in her eyes, he could tell she knew exactly what they were up to.

She shook her head. "Your room is ready upstairs. Go get settled in and meet us down on the veranda for a drink before dinner."

He nodded. "Yes, ma'am." Then he winked at Isaiah and headed upstairs.

William let himself into his room and tossed the suitcase on the bed. He strolled over to the French doors and pushed the sheer curtains aside. He unlocked the doors and opened them to let in the November sunshine and a fresh breeze. It was a beautiful evening, the temperatures in the low seventies, and as he stepped out onto the balcony, William let the sun and the heat melt away his tension.

Surely, if Dahlia had invited Buffy for the weekend, she would have said something.

'She did say to meet "us" on the verandah,' a voice insisted in his head.

"She meant Isaiah," he said out loud.

He heard the fall of a footstep off to his right and he turned.

"Are you talking to yourself?" Buffy asked.

All his tension, which had just recently washed away, came flooding back. His first thought, looking at her standing there in the setting sun was that she looked beautiful. Her hair seemed blonder, gilded in the fading glow and her skin seemed darker from hours spent in the sun. She wore a sleeveless black blouse and white linen capris, and a beautiful necklace of black and white crystals graced her neck. In that moment, she looked as gorgeous as she did in all his dreams.

Then he noticed that she looked tired. There were dark circles beneath her eyes and her smile seemed forced. She looked as nervous as he felt.

"Hi," he said. "Seems you did catch me talking to myself." He shrugged, smiling. "Can't really deny it now, can I?"

She shook her head and walked over to stand next to him. They both leaned against the railing and stared out at the Ashley River.

"How have you been?" she asked, breaking the heavy silence.

'Horrible', he wanted to say. 'I can't sleep. I miss you. I want you. I don't feel comfortable in my own skin. What do I have to do to have you back? Come back to me. Make the ache go away'.

"Good," he said instead. "I finished the second book. It's been sent off and it's in the editor's capable hands now."

She smiled over at him. "That's great. You managed to resolve the conflict then?"

William looked away from her and thought about the ending to his second novel. Oh yeah, he'd resolved the conflict alright. How could a woman like Morgan love and live happily with a demon like Rain? She couldn't. There was no way for a woman like Morgan, descendant from angels, to live happily with a demon like Rain.

So William had killed him.

He could not have killed off Morgan. He loved her too much and it would have killed something inside of him, some part of his own creativity would have died, if he'd killed his heroine.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I solved their conflict."

"I'm glad. So when can I expect to see it on bookstore shelves everywhere?"

"Summer. It's slotted for an August release."

This is ridiculous, he thought to himself. What the bloody hell was wrong with him? Why didn't he just take her into his arms and beg her to give him a chance? To give them a chance?

He turned to her, his hands clenching.

"Buf-"

"Willi-"

A bell rang from somewhere below them and William cursed. Buffy looked startled.

"What's that?"

"Dahlia, she's ordering us down to the verandah."

A look of disappointment flitted across her face, but she forced a smile. "Well, we better not leave her waiting."

He cocked a grin and exhaled deeply. "Better not. I don't want her withholding any sweet potato pie from me." He held out his arm. "Shall we?"

Instead of taking his arm, Buffy slipped her hand in his and smiled at him shyly. "Let's go."

TBC


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Buffy sat back with her glass of wine and watched William, Dahlia, and Isaiah. They were laughing as William told the story of the first time Isaiah had taken him fishing out on the river.

"Right, there's Dahlia with her parasol looking like some fainting lily from Gone with the bloody Wind and I'm standing in the river, up to my waist holding nothing but my fishing rod and the sodding net," William said, shaking his head and laughing at the memory.

Isaiah threw his head back and laughed. "And you had the hook stuck in your bucket hat!"

"You wore a hat?" Buffy asked in surprise.

William flushed, glancing over at her. "Yeah, well, it was sunny out on the river. And we were fishing, yeah, so I had to wear a proper fishing hat."

Dahlia grinned and winked at Buffy. "A real Dixie hat it was, too. Isaiah got him a proper one, plaid and everything."

"Thought he was Scottish," Isaiah said.

William shuddered. "Mate, thank Christ you only made that mistake once."

Isaiah shrugged and sipped his beer. "Miss Dahlia said her British writer friend was coming for the weekend and could I take him out fishing. I thought you were all the same."

Buffy chuckled. "I will have to see this hat."

Dahlia gestured to the back of the property. "I am sure it is in the boat house with all the fishing gear." She looked over archly at William. "Perhaps, William, you should take Miss Summers out fishing this weekend."

William glanced over at Buffy and she flushed under his appraising look. "If Miss Summers would be so inclined, I'd be more than happy to take her."

"That would be nice," she said.

He nodded. "Then fishing we will go." He glanced over at Isaiah and, leaning over, whispered conspiratorially. "You'll have to show me again how to bait the hook."

They burst out laughing.

Dahlia stood up. "Would you like some coffee with dessert?"

Buffy gestured her to sit. "You sit down, Dahlia; I'll go and get it."

"Annabelle's probably gone up to her rooms by now," Dahlia said. "I told her not to wait around." She sat back down.

Buffy grinned. "I'm sure I can manage coffee and dessert."

William stood up with her. "I'll help."

Dahlia and Isaiah watched the two of them leave. He turned to her and took her hand gently in his, bringing it to his lips and kissing it softly.

"Dahlia, you have a look on your face," he murmured.

She squeezed his hand and smiled. "Usually it is pride that keeps people apart," she said, looking at him pointedly. He ducked his head with a small grin. "But with those two, it is their fear."

"You gonna tell them the truth?"

She nodded. "I will tell William the truth; what he does with it will be up to him. I have a – a few little tricks up my sleeve that will help them along."

Isaiah looked a little nervous. "Dahlia, now you know I don't hold with none of that voodoo magic stuff you practice."

She batted her eyelashes at him and leaning forward, pressed a kiss to his weathered cheek. "Why, Isaiah love, how do you think I won your heart?"

***

William set about preparing the coffee. He ground the fresh roasted beans and then added three scoops of cut chicory to the French coffee press.

Watching him, Buffy's eyes widened. "Okay, now I am really glad that you offered to help. Where's the kettle and the Taster's Choice?"

He chuckled. "Dahlia doesn't do anything in half measures. She loves her chicory coffee so she has Annabelle roast and cut imported French chicory root for her." He glanced over at her with a crooked grin. "My Dahlia is a high maintenance woman."

"She loves you," Buffy noted.

He poured the boiling water into the coffee press and fitted the lid and pump. Setting the timer, he carried the coffee cups, sugar and cream over to the table and put them on the tray. "I love her," he said simply.

Buffy opened the cake box and stared down at the decadent dessert. She slid it out of the box and began slicing. She slipped a piece on a dessert plate and licked her finger.

"My, God, that's good," she said.

William, his hand poised on the French press, swallowed as he watched her lick her finger. "Right, um – it's red velvet. Dahlia's favorite." He turned away quickly and stared at the cupboard, counting to ten to force back the images Buffy licking her finger had instantly conjured.

"I've never had it, heard of it, but never tried it."

"Good. I mean, it's good." He shook his head, convinced that he was the world's biggest, bumbling idiot.

The timer on the stove beeped and he slowly pressed the pump down on the coffee press. When it was done, he turned and carried it to the tray where Buffy had set out four generous slices of cake. She was busy wiping the leftover butter cream frosting from the cake server and licking her fingers.

William dropped the coffee press onto the tray with more force than recommended and he winced. He brushed against Buffy as he moved away from the table and she chuckled.

"Sorry, I should probably get out of your way," she said. She reached past him and set the server down on the table. "It's just too good to pass up."

It was crazy, but completely understandable that William suddenly wished he was the cake server. He eyed the arch of her side as she stretched and instantly recalled what it had looked like naked; her naked, curved hip in his bed in the early morning light.

The hands that reached for the tray were trembling.

"Right then, let's bring this out shall we?" he exclaimed much too loudly. He turned away and marched from the kitchen and its temptations.

Buffy glanced up at him from beneath her lashes and smiled.

***

Buffy trailed her fingers in the river as their boat drifted in the current. From beneath the brim of the large straw hat Dahlia had lent her, she watched William.

He expertly baited his hook, following the instructions that Isaiah had none too secretly given him that morning. That done, he lifted his arm and in one beautiful motion, cast his line. Then he settled back and gazed at her. She looked a picture in cotton shorts that left her tanned legs bare and a halter top that left little to the imagination. With the hat shading her face, she looked mysterious and tempting.

Every time William looked at her, he pictured her with nothing on but the bloody hat.

It was going to be a long morning.

"What happens now?" she asked, catching him off guard.

He looked at her for a moment, completely speechless. What happens now? Bloody hell, he had a list a mile long of what he'd like to happen now.

She gestured to the fishing line. "With that. What do you have to do now?"

"Oh! That! We wait."

She stared at him in disbelief. "We wait? That's it?"

He nodded. "That's it."

"And this is a sport?"

"The sport of kings and gentlemen of leisure, it is," he said somewhat proudly.

"It would have to be; no other men would have enough time on their hands to sit around doing nothing for hours and call it a sport. It's worse than golf."

He burst out laughing and then, settling back, he lowered his ridiculous plaid bucket hat down over his eyes. "I suspect you're right and they call it a sport to justify it. But you didn't hear that from me, pet."

Buffy smiled as the term of endearment slipped past his lips. It was the first time since they had arrived at Beauvais Hall that he'd said it. Watching him resting on the other side of the boat, his legs stretched out, and his arms crossed over his chest, she had an idea.

Very carefully, she braced her hands on each side of the row boat and stood up. The boat rocked dangerously and she stopped.

William's eyes flew open and he looked up at her.

"What are you doing?"

"Coming over to your side," she said. She took another careful step and the boat rocked again.

William's arms flew out and he gripped the sides to steady himself. "Not sure if that's the best of ideas."

She pouted, looking at the bottom of the boat and trying to determine where the most secure and balanced spots to set her feet were. It should only take two more steps and she'd be with him.

She bit her lip. "It'll be fine. Relax. I killed vampires, I can do this."

He shook his head doubtfully. "Killing vampires and walking across a rowboat are two different things, Slayer."

She took the last step and plopped herself down on the pillowed bench next to him with an air of triumph. The boat rocked wildly, but did stay afloat.

"See! I did it!"

William grinned and rested his arm along the back of the seat. "You did."

She settled down and without asking permission, tucked her head into the nook where his arm met his shoulder. She laid her arm around his trim waist and closed her eyes. And waited.

William slowly let his breath out and looked down at her. Her hat had fallen askew and with a nudge, he pushed it off. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, smelling her shampoo and the earthy scent of the river heated by the sun. Then he tightened his arm around her, rested his head against hers and relaxed.

Buffy felt him give in, inch by inch, and she smiled.

Their boat drifted past the towering oaks draped in their ghostly dresses of Spanish Moss. Carefully pruned lawns and cultivated fields and majestic plantations graced the banks. Others, enjoying a beautiful Saturday afternoon, were out boating and fishing and they waved and called out hellos as they passed.

"I love this place," Buffy murmured.

"Why?"

"There's something magical about it," she tried to explain. "I've spent most of my life in California where everything is new and fabricated. California is like a super model. Beautiful and distant. Here, things are worn and faded but still so beautiful. It clings to its past, refusing to give it up, no matter how decayed it is."

"Like, Miss Havisham," William said.

She glanced up at him. "Who?"

"She's a character in Dickens' novel, Great Expectations. She's a wealthy, powerful spinster whose fiancé jilted her at the altar and she spent the rest of her life in this decaying mansion, wearing her fading wedding gown and dusty jewels. She spent her whole life longing for her lost love and it drove her crazy." He glanced up at the ruins of an antebellum mansion. "'Don't think it's only the heart that breaks'," he quoted. He sighed. "I always felt for Miss Havisham. Don't get me wrong, she was a crazy bitch. But she was love's bitch."

Buffy looked around at the landscape with new eyes. Each plantation, each mansion, the beautiful ones and those that time and apathy had destroyed, had a story. Perhaps that's what she loved so much about the South. It had had time to live centuries of stories.

"Would you ever go back to California?" he asked suddenly.

She shrugged. "I can't say. Right now, my life is here." She glanced up at him. "I don't know what the future holds." She reached up and tilted his hat back so she could see his eyes. There were languorous and mellow, as if the hazy, lazy golden sunlight spilling across the water had filtered into him. He was incredibly relaxed and she realized that she was as well. In his arms she felt like warm, liquid honey. Not a care, not a worry in the world. No apocalypse around the bend. Just plain old happy.

It was a first.

William stared down at her lips. He gave in to his instincts, bent down, and covered her lips with his. He tightened his grip, drawing her closer, and softened his kiss. He kissed her slowly, as if he had all day to savor her taste and the texture of her lips, tongue, and mouth. He ran a hand gently over her hair, wrapping strands of gold around his fingers, holding her fast to him.

He broke the kiss as softly as he'd started it. He searched her face, not sure exactly what he was looking for. He hoped that when he saw it, he would know it. He thought he saw just a hint of it in the curve of her grateful smile.

Buffy reached up and pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek. Then she settled back into his arms and watched the landscape as they drifted past.

***

Dahlia stood in the shadows of an old oak tree and watched as Buffy and William walked up the path from the river to the house. They held hands and every now and then, William would pull her to his side, sling his arm around her and hug her. Dahlia could hear their laughter carrying across the yard and it filled her heart.

She turned and placed the bunch of flowers on the grave. Bending over, she picked off some bits of tenacious moss and dusted off the name etched in stone. Her elegant fingers traced out her granddaughter's name, but for the first time, she didn't feel the traditional sadness squeeze her heart.

"Sweetheart," she whispered. "I've found a piece of you in her. Everyone has come home to me."

***William's quote is from the Carol Ann Duffy poem, "Havisham".


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Buffy characters and I make no cash off of this! I'm just playing around in Joss's world!

NOTE: excerpt towards end of chapter is from "Chosen", BTVS, Season 7

NOTE: Hopefully you will forgive me my rather generous interpretation of Spike's character...I realise that I'm being rather charitable but I can't help myself. :0)

All reviews, emails, and comments are welcome! To those who've stuck it out this far, thank you so much! I hope you are not disappointed with the ending! Mind you...I'm not opposed to writing an epilogue...

Chapter Seventeen

The house was silent when William left. He snuck out the back door and quietly walked down the path towards the patch of oaks that shaded the small family plot. Leaving the path, he set foot across the grass, and he reached into his pocket and took out the pack of cigarettes and lighter.

This was the only time he ever smoked. He'd never, as far as he knew, smoked in his life. But for some reason, when he came out to Beauvais Hall, he took the time to come out to this spot every night and smoke a cigarette or two. He was always very careful to bury the butts and hide all the evidence. Dahlia had been very vocal with her opinion of the disgusting habit the one time Jackie had come out to the plantation and had the nerve to light up a smoke after a very tense dinner.

Thinking of Jackie, William shook his head. Jackie, Lydia – he didn't know what to call her anymore! She was still Jackie to him and wondered how she was making out in California. She'd gone for a short vacation to spend time with Giles and his people. William was terrified that she was going to return to her previous career and leave him high and dry, but she'd promised to find him a replacement as competent as she was.

He only hoped that that was even possible, but he had his doubts!

His footsteps were soundless on the damp grass as he reached the cemetery and sat down on the lone bench facing the most recent tombstone.

He leaned back, lit his smoke, and took a deep drag.

"That is a nasty habit, William," Dahlia said sharply.

Startled, William sat up, dropped the cigarette to the ground and quickly covered it with his shoe. "Bollocks," he muttered.

"Oh, do not think that you have been successful in hiding that from me," she said as she sat down next to him. "I have known about it the whole time."

He grinned at her sheepishly. "Then you should have said something, love."

She chuckled. "Why? And make things easier for you? Have you smoking around the verandah like that awful woman you hired?"

He laughed and settled his arm around her, resting it on the back of the bench.

"What are you doing out here so late?" he asked.

She sighed. "Waiting for you, took you long enough."

He looked down at her in surprise. "Waiting for me?"

She nodded. "I need to talk to you and I wanted to do it here, just you and me."

He glanced over at the tombstone and the fresh flowers. "You miss her," he said softly.

She smiled, nodding. "I do, but not as much as I used to. It does pass, time does heal. As much as that is a cliché, it is true. And other things have helped."

He rubbed her shoulder and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I'm glad."

"You have helped."

He was surprised. "Me? How?" He thought about his novels and nodded in understanding. "The books, that's right."

She shook her head. "While that did help, there was something else."

He looked bewildered. "What else?"

She smiled at his naivety. "William, do you honestly not feel or understand that there is more going on here than what we see? That there are bigger powers at work? How can you, with all that imagination and all those stories in your head, not believe?"

He sighed and looked away from her. "If I give in to that, how the hell can I control it?"

"You do not, you just let it happen. You just let it be, accept what is."

"And what is?"

"You have been here before," she murmured.

He frowned. "Before? Before when?"

"As Spike."

He stared at her, his face losing all its color. He looked at the tombstone and back at Dahlia. "Please, Dahlia, please tell me that I- that Spike didn't kill your granddaughter," he begged.

She reached up and gently ran a hand over his hair and down his cheek. "No, my dear, he did not." She took his hand in hers and she turned to the tombstone, needing to feel her granddaughter's presence even more strongly as she recounted the tale. "I did not lie to Miss Summers when I told her that Savannah had been killed while in the line of duty. Being a slayer killed her. Just not in the way that slayers are usually killed. You see, William, Savannah did not go down fighting and spitting and struggling for her very life. She was not a fighter, she was a poet." She glanced over at him and smiled sadly. "She wrote the most beautiful poems. I will give you one of her journals and you will see that I had reason to be proud. She was a beautiful girl, kind and gentle. There was no killer instinct in her. There was no fight in her." She exhaled deeply and looked at the tree beneath which her granddaughter was buried. "She hung herself there, from that tree."

A gasp escaped William's lips and his heart sank. He looked over at the tree, trying not to, but unable to stop the image of a beautiful teenage girl swinging limply from a tree limb. He didn't know what to say.

"Aah, bloody hell," he whispered hoarsely, fighting back the tears.

"I should have seen it coming," Dahlia said and wiped a tear from her cheek. "But I was stupid and naïve. All the signs were there, but I just put it down to being a teenager. I even spoke to her Watcher about it, but he dismissed the concerns. It is difficult being a slayer, he said. And I left it at that." She took a deep breath and squeezed his hand. "It was a week after her eighteenth birthday. She had been particularly quiet, writing in her journals. She spent a lot of time with me, just sitting and reading. And then, at about midnight, I heard her leave. I thought she was going patrolling and thought nothing of it."

William thought back to her earlier version of the story and his heart pounded. "Did Isaiah find her?"

She shook her head. "No, he did not. I did."

William drew her close. "Christ, Dahlia, I'm so sorry."

She closed her eyes, but she could not escape the memory of that night. It was still as vivid to her as if it had just happened. She gritted her teeth and forced herself to continue. He needed to know the rest.

"I put my robe on and decided to go looking for her at about three. She was usually in by then. As you can imagine, there are not that many vampires out here. She often went into Charleston and came back as the sun rose. But sometimes she just went out and stayed in the area. I had not heard the car leave, so I knew she was not far."

William didn't understand why Dahlia was putting herself through this. He pressed another kiss to her soft, white hair, hoping that somehow, the telling of this story was giving her some sort of comfort.

"I walked across the lawn towards the copse of trees and I heard some noise, a rustling and some cursing." She shook her head at the memory. "I remember the cursing and the smell of cigarettes."

William froze.

"When I stepped into the clearing, I saw him." She looked up at him. "Spike was standing there, cutting my granddaughter down from the tree. He – he had laid her body down on the grass and was trying to get the noose from her neck."

"Bloody hell," he whispered.

"I fell to my knees. I think I cried out. It – it was obvious what had happened, even to me, to someone who in a million years would never have thought it possible."

"What did he do?" William asked. He was terrified of her answer. What else would a soulless demon have done? His entire body was strung tight, waiting for her answer.

"He cursed, my goodness, and he cursed even more when he saw me," she said with a trembling smile.

_"What the bloody hell are you doing here?" he'd asked her._

_She'd simply stared at her granddaughter's body lying in the grass, the face discolored and her eyes bulging._

_"Not supposed to see this," Spike said as he threw his leather coat over the body, hiding it from her. "For Christ's sakes, go back to the house. Forget you ever came out. Send someone out in a bit. Tell the watcher a vampire got her."_

Dahlia looked up at William, his face in the moonlight exactly like the one of the vampire that night.

"He was trying to cover it up, you see. To protect me, to protect Savannah. He did not want me or anyone to know that Savannah had killed herself," she explained.

William shook his head. "Why? Why would a sodding vampire care what you thought? Why would he care how a slayer died unless he'd killed her himself?"

She shook her head, smiling gently. "Because he was different," she said. "I did as he asked, and I asked Isaiah to go look for her. When he found her, there was no sign of the noose, of the rope, and there were two tiny puncture wounds in her neck."

"Did he drink from her?" William asked in horror.

Dahlia shook her head. "No, he did not."

"How do you know that?"

She laid her hand over her heart. "Because when I looked into his eyes I did not see evil. I saw confusion, despair, compassion, and anger. But I did not see evil."

William removed his arm and he leaned forward, bracing his arms on his knees. He bent his head and stared at the grass.

"Why tell me this?"

She looked at him; he looked so vulnerable and so fragile. "Because you need to understand and to accept that there are two sides to you. You are both Spike and William. Your memories are not just your own, they are shared. You come here and smoke those cigarettes because this is a sacred ground for you. You write those stories and those poems and you toss at night from dreams that are memories and they are a part of who you are. William, you will not be happy until you embrace your past and accept who you are."

"A demon? A killer?"

She shook her head. "A man who was cursed with the loss of his soul. A man who sometimes tried to be good. Who loved and was loved."

"He was a killer," William whispered.

"Sometimes the darkness won," she said. "William, there is darkness in all of us. The difference is that some of us have souls protected by the Gods and that helps us vanquish the darkness. Spike had his soul taken from him, and all he had left was a little spark; sometimes he was able to use that spark and win his battles, as I saw that night."

"Buffy loved him," he said suddenly.

Dahlia nodded. "She saw good in him. It is to her credit that she was able to see that part of him. Most couldn't see through the darkness."

"Can I make her love me?"

Dahlia grinned. "She already does, William. She loves your goodness because it is so easy to. There is no work here, there is just love."

"I don't think she's over him," he said. "I don't think she'll ever be able to put him to rest. She has this crazy idea that she has to fix things with him, apologize for something. And she can't, he's gone."

"He is not gone completely," she said. She tapped his chest, over his heart. "You share a soul." Dahlia looked up at the moon and smiled mysteriously. "There are ways to soothe the soul and heal the past," she murmured. "You both need it."

He sighed and sat back and stared at the tombstone. "So he wasn't all fangs and blood sucking?"

She took his hand in hers and stood up. "No, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you will be at peace and one with yourself."

He nodded and they began walking to towards the house. "I'll try," he said. Stopping, he leaned down and kissed her cheek softly. "Thank you for telling me, love. It couldn't have been easy."

She smiled softly. "Having you here, all these times, has made it easier. It was almost as if I was able to say thank you to that man for trying to protect me from the truth, and for trying to protect Savannah's memory."

William looked up at the house and the room where Buffy slept. He could only hope that other memories could also be laid to rest.

***

Dahlia stepped into the potting shed. She glanced behind her, making sure that William had gone into the house. She saw the light in his room extinguish, she nodded to herself, and then shut the door to the shed behind her. She went to the table in the middle of the room and looked over the items spread out before her. She laid down the last item she'd needed, a crumpled cigarette.

She lit the candles on the table, calling on each of the elements as she did so, as if she were calling out to old friends.

"I call on thee, the northern wind, to soothe the spirit with thy cool breeze." She lit the white candle and faced north. Then she turned clockwise and faced the east. "I call on thee, fire of the east, to burn away the nightmares." She lit the red candle and bowed her head. Then she faced south and lit the green candle. "I call on thee, earth of the south, to help root the seeds of love." Finally, she faced the west and lit the blue candle. "And I call on thee, water of the west, to cleanse the soul."

Dahlia felt the magic rise in the circle she'd cast and she thanked each of her guiding goddesses for their power. She lit the charcoal disc in the brass urn and then she turned her attention to the silver basin in front of her. Into it, she crumbled the cigarette, and then added some of Buffy's hair that she'd had Annabelle steal from her hairbrush that morning. To this mixture she added the Gris Gris herbs that she ordered in special from New Orleans. Sprinkling the mixture with her own, special concoction of dried sage, lavender and sandalwood, she called upon Savannah's spirit.

"Using the night, let William's dreams take form and flight. Let Spike's spirit brighten the dark corners and in William's darkest hour, let him see the light." Carefully, she stirred the mixture clockwise as she spoke the incantation. Then she took a small silver spoon, her granddaughter's baby spoon, and she collected some of the mixture and sprinkled it over the smoldering charcoal. The herbs began to smoke, filling the air with that familiar scent of cigarette and lavender. Tears smarted her eyes as she felt Savannah's presence in the shed.

"Hello, my baby girl," she whispered, closing her eyes and smiling. "It has been a long time."

She felt the air around her shift as it thickened with the spirit. Ghostly fingers played over her hair and she felt the breath of a kiss on her cheek.

"Go and help them," Dahlia whispered. "Give back to him the memories that will strengthen their bond and heal their past."

Dahlia bent over and taking in a deep breath, she softly blew the thick rising incense across the room and out the window. She opened her eyes and watched as the swirling cloud of smoke solidified for a moment. For a split second, she could see the fall of her granddaughter's hair and the graceful stretch of her arm as it rose in a wave.

"Good bye, my darling," Dahlia murmured. "Sweet dreams."

***

William turned out his light and closed the door to his room. He walked down the hallway and stood outside of Buffy's room. Raising a hand, he knocked softly.

"Come in," she called out.

He let himself in, his eyes adjusted to the low light and he quickly found her. She was lounging on a chaise over by the window, bathed in a beam of soft moonlight.

"Hi," he murmured, walking towards her.

She shifted on the chaise, making room for him. He sat down, leaned back and without question, she settled into his arms and stretched her legs out.

"What were you doing outside?"

He sighed, not surprised that she'd seen him. Glancing out the window, he noted that she had a perfect view of the yard.

"I went for a smoke out by that copse of trees there," he explained.

She didn't show any surprise at the mention of the cigarette. Simply took it as a given.

"Did you see Dahlia? She'd gone out a bit before you," asked Buffy.

He nodded. "Yeah, she found me."

"She okay? She seemed a bit preoccupied after dinner."

How could he explain it to her? Did he even want to? Did Dahlia want him to? Was that what this was all about? Did he need to tell Buffy that her lost love had tried to protect Dahlia and her granddaughter? Did Buffy need one more reason to love Spike?

"She had a story to tell me," William began. "About her granddaughter." Quickly, and without sparing any of the details, he recounted Dahlia's tale of the night Savannah had died.

Buffy watched him speak, noted the expressions on his face and she saw his struggle, but she couldn't tell which side was winning. The skeptic or the poet. When he was finished, she nodded.

"That doesn't surprise me," she murmured. "If Spike had killed Savannah, I would have known about it. He would have told me. Giles said that in the Watcher's Diaries it read simply that it appeared that an unknown vampire had killed her. There were contusions on her neck as well as puncture wounds. They put it down to strangulation." She shrugged. "As sad as it is, slayers are killed in the line of duty. No one thought to question it any further."

He drew her tightly to him and pressed his cheek against the top of her head. The thought of her dying, in any way, shape or form, terrified him. He didn't know how he was going to survive loving this woman.

"Did you – did you ever consider it?" he asked quietly.

She looked up at him. "Killing myself?"

He nodded.

She sighed. "There were times, after my mom died and everything was crumbling around me that it just seemed overwhelming. But I had Dawn to take care of, and there was Xander and Giles and Will to take care of me. After Glory and after I came back, it was worse."

"Came back? From where? Where did you go?" he asked in curiosity.

Without emotion, Buffy explained her plunge through the open portal and Willow's resurrection spell.

William stared at her in shock, jaw dropped, eyes wide.

"Right then," he said in disbelief. "You died, went to heaven and then were dragged back by a fucking witch and had to dig yourself out of your own grave."

She nodded. "That pretty much sums it up."

"Bloody hell, woman."

She shrugged. "It's ancient history. It's over. But the only thing that saved me after that happened was, Spike." She looked down at her hands, then up at him. "I was so angry at Willow and Xander for bringing me back and, Spike, well, he understood. He was the only one that understood the darkness in me. But killing myself? There were too many demons out there who wanted me dead, I never thought of doing the job for them."

He kissed her softly. "Thank God for that," he murmured. Then he leaned back and stared at her, frowning. "You're done now, right? All that slaying and dying? Retired, yeah?"

She smiled gently. "I'm done."

He closed his eyes and sent a small prayer heavenward.

She settled back in his arms and they watched as the dim light went out in the potting shed and Dahlia crossed the yard and came back into the house.

"So where do we go from here, pet?" he asked.

Buffy smiled, a tiny secret smile.

"We _**both**_ go on living," she murmured.

He nodded. "Sounds good."

Buffy closed her eyes and they drifted off to sleep.

***

_Spike felt the heat as the blue light exploded from his chest. It burst a hole though the ceiling, right up through the principal's office into the night sky. All around them the Turok-Hans exploded into clouds of dust. The ground shook beneath their feet and parts of the ceiling and floor caved in._

_"Everybody out, now!" Faith called out._

_Buffy hurried to Spike's side. _

_He looked down, a wild grin on his face, as Buffy stared up at him. They'd fought so hard and they were almost there, victory was in sight._

_"I can feel it, Buffy."_

_"What?" she asked, her voice shaking with intensity._

_"My soul. It's really there. It kind of stings."_

_She stared at him, the scythe in her hand._

_"Go on then," he said, gesturing to the crumbling staircase and escape._

_She shook her head. "No, no. You've done enough. You could still –"_

_"No. You've beat them back. It's for me to do the clean up."_

_Faith yelled down as the walls crumbled around them. "Buffy! Come on!"_

_Spike glanced up at Faith, then looked to Buffy. "Gotta move, lamb. I think it's fair to say that school's out for bloody summer."_

_Buffy looked frantically between him and her escape, her eyes wide with worry. "Spike!" she cried._

_"I mean it!" he shouted. "I gotta do this!"_

_He held his hand out to her, needing to stop her, needing to push her away, needing to touch her one last time. Buffy intertwined her fingers with his. She could feel the incredible, beautiful light that emanated from him like a beacon. Their hands burst into flames. And she looked into his face, her eyes brimming with tears._

_"I love you," she called out over the roar of the crumbling walls._

_He shook his head. "No you don't. But thanks for saying it." The ground beneath his feet swelled and buckled as another earthquake hit. He lost his contact with her. "Now go!" He watched as she turned and ran. A wild grin split his face as he looked up, the flames eating away, searing his flesh. "I wanna see how it ends!" _

William shifted uneasily in his sleep. In his dream, Spike burst into light and William sat up suddenly. "No! Don't!"

Buffy jumped, landing on her feet quickly, arms poised out in front of her. She looked around the room frantically. "What? Who's there?"

He bent over and buried his head in his hands. "Christ!" he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "Shite."

Buffy sat down next to him and put her arm around him. "William, what's wrong?"

He looked up at her, his face ashen, his eyes wide with remembered horror. "My God, Buffy. I – I just had the most vivid dream!"

She took his hand in hers. He looked down at their entwined hands, remembering how in the dream, they'd caught on fire. He remembered the searing heat. He remembered her frantic face, the look in her eyes and suddenly he understood.

He gazed at her, searching her eyes.

"Buffy, tell me, how do you see me. What – what are your feelings?"

She looked startled at the turn in the conversation. But she knew that here was her opportunity to set things on the right path. Whatever his nightmare had been, she would heal him.

"I love you," she said gently.

He opened his mouth to speak and quickly she covered his lips with her finger and shook her head. "No, don't say anything." She said. "Just – just let it be what it is."

A warm, gentle light filled his heart and spilled over into his bleu eyes. He carefully removed her finger from his lips. "Why do you do that? Why do you cover my mouth like that when you tell me love me? You did it before, back in Charleston."

"I – " she faltered.

"Are you afraid that I will just deny it? 'No you don't. But thanks for saying it." He murmured.

Buffy's eyes widened.

William grinned and pulled her into his arms. "I don't know how. But I remember that night. I remember every bloody second."

Buffy tightened her arms around him. "Thank God!"

He pulled back and looked down at her. "Now, let's do this right and proper."

With tears in her eyes, she framed his face with her hands. "I love you," she whispered, staring into his eyes.

William smiled. "I love you too, pet. I love you too." He leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips.

Buffy's lips curved in a smile. She'd gotten her chance to fix things after all and from the ashes of the Hellmouth and William's nightmare, Buffy knew that they both had a chance to heal.

THE END


End file.
